The True Meaning of Christmas

Despite the fact that we do not attend church every week, it is more than important to me that the boys learn the true meaning of Christmas.  I do not want to instill it in their heads that it is solely about Santa, the elf that visits, and asking for a ton of toys for Christmas.  I want them to learn it is about giving, the birth of Jesus, and the gathering of family.  Yes, we have obviously talked about Santa, seen Santa, and even have our elf visiting from the North Pole.  Yes, I have set up our small snow world with ornaments (seen here), and we have created a Christmas Tree space of their own, where they pretend to make candy and presents for everyone in the house on a daily basis (seen here).  But, before we immersed ourselves too much into the cultural traditions, I took the week to immerse them in my religious beliefs.

I started the week by reading to them from their children's Bible about the journey for Mary and Joseph, and the birth of Jesus in the manger.  We set up our own Nativity, and Pierce loved being able to match up the Nativity with the names in the book.  He is finally at that age where he is putting things together from multiple contexts...which is making my job much easier.  :)  Carter was more about playing with the animals, but hey.  He is a young 2 year old.  And he is being exposed.  That is the important part.

To have even more fun with our lesson, I had printed out some full size letter J's for the boys to decorate.  I had them think of whose name starts with J in the Bible, and the only one they mentioned was Jesus.  I also tried to have them correlate the J with Joseph, but that is not happening.  It is Jesus for them, and that is all there is to it.

Yesterday we colored in our angel coloring pages ( found through this website), and I was going to have the boys paint coffee filters with glitter and glue them onto popsicle sticks.  However, we had a surprise visit from family, so we did not have a chance to do our craft yet.

I also glued together some popsicle sticks to represent the star that lead the Shepard and Wise Men to the manger.  Pierce is specially fascinated with the meaning of the star (after all, he wants to be an astronaut), and was searching for the brightest star in the sky last night.  The boys are very excited to decorate their stars when they wake up from their naps today.  They already have visions of glue, glitter, paint, etc.  :)  

Of course we also borrowed a ton of books from our library.  Out of all the books we borrowed, it is very apparent that the boys have 2 favorites.  The first one is titled, This is the Star, and is written by Joyce Dunbar.  It is very repetitive, and builds on itself.  It honestly makes it understandable for Carter to even follow along on what the Star did.  The second book is The Donkey's Christmas Song, written by Nancy Tafuri.  This is not as religious, but it allows for a lot of interaction with the reader, and it still explains the story of Jesus's birth, through the eyes of the animals in the manger.

Every night we have ended our day by me tucking them in singing them various Christmas songs that go along with the theme for the day.  Their favorite so far?  Angels we Have Heard on High.  I have to admit.  That is one of my favorite ones too.

What are some of your favorite traditions or activities you like to do with your children to teach them the true meaning of Christmas?