Happy Birthday, Jesus!!

We LOVE Christmas here at our house!  We usually start listening to Christmas music before Thanksgiving even gets here and our tree(s) go up the day after Thanksgiving!!  

We always make gifts for neighbors and friends.  Sometimes we make Christmas ornaments.  Sometimes we make fudge and Christmas candy.

photo credit

There really are so many things you can do to remember that Jesus is the reason for Christmas, but our favorite thing that we do at our house to celebrate Jesus' birthday is throw Him a Birthday party complete with balloons!  After we eat our Christmas dinner, the kids sing "Happy Birthday" and blow out the candles on His cake.  We eat homemade ice cream for dessert along with the Birthday cake.

When we are finished eating Birthday Cake and Ice Cream, the kids and I get out last year's "gifts" that we gave to Jesus.  These gifts are nothing more than a list of things we wanted to accomplish for Him throughout the following year.  We read over it to see what goals we achieved from the previous year and which we still need to work toward.

You see, I tell my children that Jesus wants them to obey, to be respectful, to do His will for their lives every day and to praise His name.  These are all gifts the Bible speaks of.  God loves it when we offer him praise and obedience. 

Some of the "gifts" found on our lists {every child has a list of their own of things they want to give to Jesus} include:

• reading God's Word every day  (depends on the age of the child)
• praying more
• obeying immediately
• memorizing a certain amount of Bible verses
• learning to sing a certain song or 2 to sing in church
• learning to play the piano or anything that can be used to do God's work
• learning to be kind or work on a character trait that that specific child needs to work on 
• learning to love others the way Jesus loves them
• learning to tell others about Jesus and how they can go to Heaven

Every year you can get out your child's "gifts" to Jesus and you can see how he's changed and grown spiritually and in every other way too.  It's a great way to help your child look inside himself and judge his own heart and the issues he needs to work on.  

It's also a great and a fun way to remember that Christmas is about Jesus. We give our children three Christmas gifts each in remembrance of the gold, frankincense, and myrrh that Jesus was given by the Wise Men, but we try to remind them that JESUS is the reason for Christmas and we try to keep the main focus of Christmas on Jesus.  After all, it is HIS birthday and not ours!!  What better way to do that than to throw Him a Birthday Party on the day we remember His birthday??

Fun Tip:

You could make this a real birthday party.  Have it one day before Christmas and invite children the same ages as yours to come and bring gifts for missionary children or children in your area that can't afford Christmas.  Have the whole party: balloons, cake, food...take it as far as you want to take it.  Be festive.  Have fun!  Talk about how we get gifts on our birthday and on Jesus' birthday and this year we need to give Him our hearts and lives.  Make a difference in the lives of your children and their friends.

Don't forget our "Treasured Traditions" Christmas Party is all this week!
Please join us for:

This post is linked with:

Luv, Laughter and Happily Ever After ~ Homemade for the Holidays

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