Two Weeks

It's been almost two months since I visited my blog. Things are looking a little dusty around here even though the newness hasn't really worn off this here little baby blog of mine.

Christmas is in exactly two weeks. I am once again inwardly scolding myself for my lack of preparation for the season. I don't feel I do nearly enough to keep myself and especially my kids focused on the real reason for celebrating Christmas. Oh, of course they know Christmas is about the birth of Jesus, but it's so hard to escape the materialism that bombards us from every angle this time of year. Each year after the holidays, I vow to do better the following year, to celebrate the season in all of its true meaning, to give my kids a thorough grounding in what it really means to celebrate the birth of Jesus, this awesome, miraculous event in which God became man, a perfect sinless man, in order to take upon Him our sins, to go to hell for us, to suffer immeasurably so that we do not have to. How does one impart that knowledge to her children adequately?

I know of families that don't celebrate Christmas with gifts at all. I also know of those who don't do Santa Claus but still give gifts to their kids. (I fall into this group though my reason for not doing Santa is primarily because I don't like the idea of convincing my children something is true when it isn't. In other words, I don't like to lie to my kids. I realize plenty of people, Christian people, do the Santa thing. I'm not passing judgment just explaining my reason for not doing it with my kids.) I know of other families who make a big birthday celebration for baby Jesus out of Christmas complete with birthday cake and party decorations. Yet, I'm not sure any of these approaches are adequate.

I can't just not celebrate Christmas though. I like what Beck said about celebrating in little ways over the course of advent so that all of the anticipation is not focused on just one day and then dispelled with a tremendous feeling of letdown when that day is over. At any rate I'm currently in the process of doing some more research on the history behind some of our Christmas traditions. It's rather surprising how many pagan traditions are mixed in with the Christian ones. I found a book on the subject at the library--a book by Clement A. Miles that I think was the authoritative work on the history of Christmas around the turn of the century, the last century, that is.

In my somewhat feeble attempt to find fun things for my kids to do leading up to Christmas, I came across some fun-looking Christmas craft ideas online that use woodsy, outdoorsy stuff such as twigs and pinecones and such. Seeing as how we have boocoodles of pinecones and twigs I thought this would be perfect. I had visions of tramping through the woods with my two kids in tow, bundled against the semi-cold, collecting stuff for our project. After which, we would burst into the warm kitchen, rosy-cheeked and laughing, ready for some hot chocolate and anticipating a cozy evening by the fire crafting quaint little pinecone angels. Well, the past few days of constant, drizzly rain have pretty much shot that vision of homeyness right down. I'll have to come up with an alternate plan. In the meantime I think we'll have the hot chocolate anyway.