A Meaningful Christmas

 Back in September, I came across an idea on the internet that I could not wait to do.  Two mommies from Texas have written an advent devotional called A Meaningful Christmas.  Their plan is that you form a group of 24 friends and each friend is assigned a day of the devotional and makes an ornament to represent that day's topic.  Then, you get together after Thanksgiving and have an ornament swapping party.  I asked my friend Stephanie to help me round up 22 other people to do this with us.  We had our list of friends by early November and then hosted our swapping party the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

Everyone brought a yummy treat to share.

We displayed the ornaments in the dining room.  They were beautiful!  It was so fun to see everyone else's ornaments that night.  We were amazed at the variety and creativity represented by each ornament.

 We visited while we ate and then prayed over our ornaments.

 Everyone got a box to keep their ornaments and devotion books in and then began collecting their set of ornaments.

 The book started on December 1.  Each day there was a passage or verse to read, a devotion to share, and an activity to help make the lesson more concrete for small people.  Here is a picture of Brent and the boys on the night we studied The Trinity.  He used an egg to represent three-in-one, a pretty tough concept for adults and kids alike!

After one of the boys prayed, we hung our ornament on our kitchen tree.  Here are a couple of pictures showing them up close.

It was a great tradition to add to our advent celebration.  I loved knowing that each day those 23 other families were meditating on and remembering the same part of The Story that we were.