New Tradition

This year we added a new tradition to our holiday spirit.  We know we all like to give gifts to each other and the older two kids made stuff in school to give to us but our littlest hadn't so the thought started with this in mind and a new tradition was born.  I'd heard of families really liking giving set service gifts to each other but hadn't ever put enough thought into how to go about doing that in our family.  I thought we needed some way of spreading service as gifts to one another and making it fun.  

We needed a prop.

Then came in this baby Jesus that I'd made several years ago in church.  

Here's how it works and how we explained it to the kids:  we all want to give to each other during Christmas and we love it when we do things for each other.  Starting December 1st we'd have one of us parents start with the baby Jesus and when we did service for another person in the family we let them know by putting baby Jesus on their bed; but the service could be a mystery or something they knew.  Finding baby Jesus on their bed let them know it was their turn to do service for someone in the family.  And it could be passed on as quickly as you wanted--in fact the sooner the better to keep everyone guessing!  

  

We think it is a great way to keep the true meaning of Christmas alive throughout the month leading up to Christmas.  The kids had so much fun doing this this year that I think we'll have to pull out baby Jesus next year.  Already looking forward to Christmas 2013!!