Wowzers. I am crazy behind on posting. Confession: I have a handful of blogs that I check at least once a day and I get so annoyed when there isn't a new post. I really expect them to post daily, even though I'm lucky to post once a month. Maybe if I spent half as much time writing blogs as I do checking them this place would have some new stuff, huh?
Well... Christmas season is in full swing here (yes, I realize that I have skipped over Thanksgiving... I'll post another day on that. Maybe in Jan I'll do some catch up blogging :-P). I'm really writing this post so that I have it to refer back to in future years and see how it started and how we've changed. Perhaps someone out there will read it and get an idea and can provide me with some improved versions.
How the Teston's will celebrate Christmas 2011:
***Warning*** If you have any little eyes around you may not want to continue right now. There is some secret Santa talk coming...
Adam and I have been talking since before we had kids on how we were going to tackle the celebration of Christmas. We want our kids to know why we celebrate - to remember the birth of Jesus and what his life meant to the world and each of us personally. However, we also want to include the idea of Santa. That led to gifts from Santa. I've always wished there was some universal Santa story. For kids to go to school and one child receives a new TV, a bike, toys, etc and then another child who receives just one simple toy. Wouldn't that be confusing? At first we thought we'd do that Santa just brought one gift per kid and anything/everything else is from Mom and Dad. But then I read a blog (one of those that I check daily) and got inspired. We have found a way to combine Santa into celebration the birth of our Lord. So here's the very abbreviated version of our Santa:
-Santa was a man who loved Jesus with all his heart. He had a calling to spread the love of God to all the children on Earth. Santa brings three gifts to each child to commemorate the three gifts that were brought to the manger when Jesus was born. God was so pleased with Santa that He gave him special angel powers so that he can deliver presents all over the world in one night.
Another thing we're doing this year with Elijah is Random Acts of Christmas Kindness. I read about a mother doing this with her kids as an advent. Hopefully next year we'll do it that way too but I wasn't organized enough this year. I really, really, really love this. Like really. I'm going to kind of go off track here for a second but stay with me... have you seen any of the Best Buy commercials this season? Where the person (really all I've seen so far are mothers) are trying to "out-do" Santa. They find all these great gifts at Best Buy and then they sit up and wait for Santa to brag about how much better their gifts are and how he's not needed. Wow. Adam and I were so saddened by these commercials. The first one we saw Adam looked at me and simply said, "Guess we won't be shopping at Best Buy this season". Not that we had anything to buy there anyway, but still. I agreed. We wonder what's wrong with our country when it comes to Christmas. Even if you take politics and religion out of it and look at it on a completely secular level, here you have a company tyring to embarrass and make fun of a beloved Christmas figure! Ugh! Makes me want to punch each of those commercial moms in the face! Ok... that's definitely not the Christmas spirit coming out of me.
Christmas should be about the celebration of Jesus and if you don't do that, it should at the very least be about spreading love. It should not be about competing to find the better gift. The best gift has already been given 2000 years ago and nothing purchased at any store is going to top that. That's why we're starting the Random Acts of Christmas Kindness this year. So that our children can learn that this is a great time of year to spread love and kindness to others; to recognize those people who serve us all year and to give something back.
Wishing everyone who reads this a happy Christmas season. Spread some joy and try not to punch any bratty moms in the face.
