Twelve Days of Christmas...Story

By the way, we are planning to take Jacob and Macayla through the Christmas story over the days leading up to Christmas. I divided up the Scripture readings and it turned out to be 12, so we will have the 12 days of Christmas story. That was not intentional on my part, it just worked out that way. The plan is to use the Mary and Joseph figurines from our nativity set and starting on the morning of the 14th, Jacob will have to wake up and find them in the house. We will read about the fact that they have to go to Bethlehem. Each morning, they will be somewhere else in the house and Jacob will have to find them. When he does, he'll get a treat with the Scripture reading. I plan on putting those reference on Jake's Watering Hole as we go. We are basically going to start with Luke 2:1-5 which basically says that Mary and Joseph have to go to Bethlehem for a census and that Mary is pregnant. The next 11 days, we will "flashback" so to speak to see what has led up to that journey and eventually where the journey takes them. Our hope is that this will help Jacob start forming a better concept of what this season is truly about. The consumer mentality of our culture makes it difficult and the fact that so much of our culture refuses to recognize Christmas. I don't expect non-Christians to act Christian or be forced to celebrate it, but if people do want to celebrate it then they should acknowledge why the holiday exists. Some businesses and schools say they are going to honor all traditions by not using Christ in Christmas. I'm not sure how they can honor a tradition by excluding it. If they truly want to honor all traditions, then they should acknowledge them. Let Christmas be Christmas. Let Hanukah be Hanukah. To ignore a tradition in no way honors it. 

I we can keep the focus this season as we read the Christmas story.