PrincipledMom™

To all my online and IRL friends

Merry Christmas!

Have a wonderful Christmas and a very very happy New year! I pray your home will be filled with love and laughter and the Spirit of Christmas. May your new year be filled with God's abundant blessings and the joy of serving the living God.

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If you know me at all, you know I love the Christmas season. There's nothing like it. I love the music, the gift of Christ, the decorations, the food, the family traditions, all of it. It's great stuff.

Since we have school all year long we can take time to stop and smell the roses evergreen. We usually follow a loose plan for the month of December which includes the following, in no particular order:

• Advent inductive study 
• decorating the house
• cooking
• crafts/art
• games
• shopping
• making gifts for family and friends
• going to parties
• participating in our church's children's Christmas production
• Decorating our Jesse Tree

The list is big but I set aside one day each week of December for an activity. For example, Mondays are craft day, Tuesdays are for special games, Fridays are for baking, etc. This gives us a good variety and the kids know what they can look forward to. It also helps us to pace ourselves so we don't get overly busy.

Also we have started reading Lynne Cheney's book about Washington on Christmas Eve as a new tradition. It's good to teach our children to be mindful of the sacrifices made for our liberty.

The pace is relaxed and we do a sort of unschooling thing because we are always learning, just not is a formal way. I also have tons of printables, Christmas-themed books and more for those bored moments and read-alouds. We can snuggle and talk about the true meaning of Christmas as we enjoy the tree, Christmas music and some hot cocoa. Hurry up December!

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I love the Christmas season and always enjoy trying new things to inspire our spiritual focus of the holiday. Click on the titles for more info.

Advent Inductive Bible Study

This f*r*e*e printable study takes you through the Christmas season with daily Bible readings and activities. The coloring and marking of the text is something my kids really enjoy. Thanks to Eleanor Zweigle for writing it and thanks to Miiko for hosting it on her Web site this year.

Artful Advent e-book

 Michelle Geffken has written a lovely book for the advent season that I had the privilege to review last spring. It is art-focused (so you know I love it already!) but it's not your typical homeschool resource. She has given you tons of ideas and concepts but leaves the planning to you. This frees you up to do all sorts of things your family will enjoy without the crafty stuff you may not want to do. The excitement of the Christmas story unfolds through projects your family does together, even when your days are filled to the brim with other Christmas activities. If you have time to look at a picture or tear off a postage stamp, you can do the activities in this book! She even broke it down into ages groups so the whole family can enjoy art on their level. And the book is also full of clickable links to make things even easier during this busy time.

The ideas are simple and use things you already have around the house (including the internet), so you won't have to make time (and invest more cash) to enjoy art lessons during Advent. It's not just for Catholics either. The Christmas Story is for every Christian.

Order now and you get 4 free gifts!

Advent Bible Study

This is another study, but for teens and adults. I like the way it is laid out. It is weekly with a theme and lots of Bible study activities.

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"A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit."   Isaiah 11:1

We are starting one new tradition each Christmas at our house. We love advent calendars and we love devotionals for the month of December, so I discovered a way to do both of these in a fun and meaningful way.Those of you in mainline denominations may know about the Jesse tree. I did not. At least not until I happened across one on one of my cyber-trips.

It traces the lineage of Jesus each day leading up to Christmas, through the likes of Abraham, Rahab, King David and Mary. You recount the amazing stories of the people, recognizing God's Providence and marveling at His intricate ways. The Jesse Tree is a theme that goes back to the middle ages, and maybe before. There were many tapestries and altar pieces in churches devoted to Jesus' lineage.

The way we celebrate this today is to make a tree. We make ornaments that fit the story of the day and place them on the tree. This year at our house we will use the ficus tree in the dining room. Next year I plan to have a great little tree for the table--or maybe the wall. We will make ornaments over the next year that will be more permanent. This year they will be more "kid crafty" and we will work on them as we discuss the story each day.

Some links to learn more:

• http://www.crivoice.org/jesse.html
• http://www.christiancrafters.com/jesse_tree.html 
• http://www.jesse-tree.com/
• http://www.amazon.com/Advent-Jesse-Tree-Devotions-Christmas/dp/0687009081

If your family celebrates this tradition, I hope you will leave a note and a link to a picture of your tree.

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I can't give a complete list because I'm sure I'll forget something, but this is my family's list for Christmas reading. It's not long but the works are quality.

• Account of the Christmas story in Luke 2 (KJV), read by candlelight
• Louisa May Alcott's Christmas Treasury: The Complete Christmas Collection from River Oak Publishing
• The Candymaker's Gift by David and Helen Haidle from Honor Books
• The Christmas Lizard by Cory Edwards from Honor Books
• The Crippled Lamb by Max Lucado
• An Early-American Christmas by Tony daPaola
• This is the Star by Joyce Dunbar (along the line of "This is the house that Jack built")
• "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" poem

I am enjoying Alcott's writing very much these days. There is a nice bio of her in the book as well. Your kids will enjoy the candymaker, with it's beautiful illustrations and focus on Jesus, and the Oscar the lizard also learns the true meaning of Christmas. Early American Christmas focused on the blessing of God's bounty and not on the gifts. The poem is just for fun.

You may wonder about some of the publishers. River Oak is an imprint of Honor Books, a Christian publishing house with an emphasis on gift books. I have done a lot of proofreading for Honor Books and these are some books I received after I worked on them. I hope you will look for them in your local Christian bookstore or at www.honorbooks.com. And you might even find them at your library.

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