Christmas With Christ

Thursday, December 23, 2010

The Christmas Story from St Paul's on Vimeo.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

The Gift of the Magi

http://www.auburn.edu/~vestmon/Gift_of_the_Magi.html

Friday, December 3, 2010

Preparing our hearts to make Christ our focus this Christmas

I always plan to be ready for advent ahead of time and as always I am found scrambling around in thought as to what I am going to do! Last year I had started my own advent devotional, based on the character of God. I tell the story of Christmas as I explain the character of God. But then I had knee sugary just before Christmas last year and never finished it. This year in Mid-November I realised that I should have been doing it all through the year, so of course it is not finished – I must try and get it done by next year!

So I am left wondering, “What I am going to do this year?”

(This is my little cousins Christmas table from last year. When we are spread out all over the world it is lovely to have photographs to keep us connected!)

I think I will keep it very simple….many years ago I was inspired by Noel Piper’s book Treasuring God in Our Traditions ( http://www.desiringgod.org/Store/Books/377 ) to make every aspect of Christmas meaningful so that when our children as adults go into a shopping centre as see a Christmas tree or decorations they will be reminded of some meaningful aspect of God. For example when I see a Christmas tree now I am reminded of the wooden cross and crib. When I see little silver or gold strings of beads, I think of Christ’s humanness, of his tears. When I see strings of red beads I remember his drops of anguished blood as he agonised for our salvation and his suffering in the process. So far we have only got our trees up, and 3 little crosses made.( there is no point in remembering Christmas without remembering why Christ came, so that is why we are starting with the cross first this year) I am in no hurry and plan to do each meaningful decoration one at a time until Christmas Day, spending time explaining and enjoying a fuller meaning to Christmas. Of course nativity scenes are a must in our family. And I aim to get my cloth interactive one a bit closer to being completed! I trust this will encourage you to love our dear Saviour more this Christmas. It is a wonderful time to make your own family memories and traditions that can be passed onto new generations. Christmas Blessings and love

Joy
http://mustlookgoodbook.blogspot.com/
http://joyz-own-dezign.blogspot.com/

http://tarryhome.blogspot.com/

Monday, November 29, 2010

Christmas is coming...start knitting

http://aww.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=773425

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Christmas Day has passed but....

Christmas day has come and gone ....and yet it is with us all through the year, for without the themes we celebrate and meditate upon at Christmas and Easter our Christan faith is nothing...no God becoming man, no Jesus of perfection in order to be the final and only perfect sacrifice to wash away our sins. I have been reading a story by a South African missionary to Kenya, that my parents knew when I was a little girl with them in Kenya, A Boy of Two Worlds by Lorna Eglin. I found it absolutely fascinating that the Masai, who believe in the Creator God, also have a sacrificial system when a grave sin is committed. How glad they are when they come to understand that Jesus who is their Creator God has been the final sacrifice, and trusting in Him means all sins are washed away, making the final cleansing complete in the legal sense. (Of course a daily walk with God requires many a sorry and forgiveness too)

Indeed the world over believes they are saved and are entitled to go to heaven when they are "good", when the reality is not one of us can ever be good enough for God. It is only by His grace that he sent us his son.
There is so much to write along the Christmas theme. I had been preparing months before Christmas, a Christmas devotional for my children along the theme of the character of Jesus. With the upheaval of my knee operation I did not even do all of them with my children, never mind polish them up well enough to publish! Some years ago we also did a unit study on the symbols at Christmas time, and I had planned to polish that up for publishing here too. But I realise that it is probably a hole years worth of work and more. So although Christmas is over. I think I may continue to write....I don't know, we shall have to see how time allows!
(see my main blog to see what we did on Christmas day)

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Nativity Scenes

I do like Noel Pipers ideas of having lots of Nativity scenes around the home, to encourage repetition of the Christmas story in the lead up to Christmas! Here are some of our nativity scenes. Others can been seen dotted around our blogs.

I love to have nativity scenes around the house for the children to play with. Directly above is the nativity scene Emma and Tim came up with today completely on their own during play time! I was really impressed! They are planning to do a Christmas play for me...Emma wants to be a sheep and Tim a Shepherd. So the big ones will have to be Mary and Joseph etc.

Repeat, repeat, repeat is made fun with the opportunity to touch and move and play with characters. This is the way young children learn. How blessed we are indeed!