Christmas Tree??

Most holidays we celebrate mean very little to me (Jeff). Christmas is my most favorite but I get more and more annoyed at its commercialization each year. In fact I blogged about my frustration with it before. It is hard to see Santa everywhere: school, stores, and even church without one mention of Christ anywhere. What is a holiday to celebrate the birth of Christ, one who gave us what we could not ever give ourselves or another, we have turned into a holiday of getting rather than giving. I feel it's ironic how we go from Thanksgiving, a time of feeling grateful for what we have, to immediately going into the Christmas season where we begin thinking about what we could get. What happened to the gratitude? Anyway...enough soap box.

Sharla and I have decided not to do a Christmas tree and look to make Christ a more visible focus of our family Christmas and not the tree. So we purchased a really nice nativity set (thanks to some friends) and a star which we modified so we could light it up. Below you will see our focus for Christmas: Jesus' birth.
The picture seems to distort the figures a little. They are pretty big figures actually (up to 6" or so). The lady we purchased it from decided not to make the cow so we improvised and included our scottish cows. They are a little small but they work.

This is a close up of the family.

Here is the star when it is all lit up and the lights dimmed.

We need to go out and get more decorations to feel all Christmasy I guess: some garland and wreaths especially. We now have a 7' prelit Christmas tree to give away if someone wants it (use not sell :) ). The top section does not light up anymore but we just used a set of lights for the top section. If in the future we get a tree, it will be really small so as to not overshadow the nativity. Our gifts will be placed around the piano with the nativity to remember what Christ gave. Our only gifts are homemade gifts so it is fitting. We are also working on ideas for a new "12 days of Christmas" type thing to bring Christ more into the holiday. I hope each family develops ideas to try and keep Christ in Christmas!

As a side note...I enlisted Talmage to help me prepare for the bar. He is tabbing and reading me section headings from the essay book. Good helper. He enjoyed it too.

Jeff