This article comes from my friend, Dana Bailey at Living Stones Ministry. Dana’s mission is “Encouraging Moms to Build their Homes to God’s Glory!” Dana is a beautiful writer, who’s love for the LORD is contagious. After reading Dana’s articles, I can’t help but feel motivated and encouraged, in the most healthy way, to be the best Mom God planned me to be.

After you read Dana’s article here, go over to Living Stones Ministry and join her RSS feed. Dana’s archive is full of great reads. It is time well spent.

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Christmas Traditions, by Dana Bailey

When I was young our house was full of Christmas traditions. My mother made Christmas gifts, we baked and we decorated our house as much as possible. It was so much fun. There was always some Christmas music playing in the background. I loved it, because we did things that I wanted to do all year, but it was reserved for Christmas.When I became a mother I wanted to create my own traditions for my family, but what I have found is that we have created traditions without knowing it. Our traditions became the things that we just loved doing the most so it was expected that we do it every year.

I love to bake so that is one thing that we do a lot of. We like to bake up a nice variety of goodies and then package them in little baskets and deliver to our friends and neighbors. This is our agenda for next week. The girls and I are scanning the cookbooks already looking for new recipes to try!

Here is a short list of simple things we do to get ready for Christmas. I try to make sure that my youngest ones understand that no matter what the TV says, Christmas is not about presents, it is about Jesus.

• Create a paper chain to count down the days until Christmas. On each piece write someone to pray for, an activity to do or a scripture to read.
• Pray for those who send you a Christmas card. Thank God for them and ask him to bless them this new year.
• Bake goodies and share it with your neighbors. Include in the basket a tract or a homemade card telling the Christmas story from the Gospels
• Volunteer at a local food pantry or homeless shelter.
• Find a family to secretly bless this Christmas with gifts or a meal.
• Starting a week before Christmas start reading the Christmas story and build your nativity set. Each day add another figure to your scene so that by Christmas Eve Baby Jesus finally arrives.
• Attend your church’s Christmas Eve service or a service closest to you.
• Pray together as a family on Christmas Eve and read the Scriptural account together. Spend some time together sharing what God has done for you this past year.

Living Stones Ministry

“IT CAME! IT FINALLY CAME!!!”

The Dale and Thomas Free popcorn offer I told you about the other day? It arrived in the mail.

IT’S ABSOLUTELY AWESOME POPCORN! The Cinnamon Drizzlecorn should come with a warning that says you won’t be able to stop eating it. The Chocolate Chunk N’ Caramel took all my power to save some for my family.

Dale and Thomas Popcorn has White Cheddar & Black Peppercorn and Country Smokehouse Cheddar flavors that I going for next. My girlfriend, Faith, loves Hall of Fame Kettle Corn, so there’s no guessing what I’m buying her for Christmas.

Everyone loves popcorn, and Dale & Thomas has the ultimate! Go check them out, before it’s too late! The free popcorn offer is already gone. They have several great offers for the holidays, don’t miss out.

I just finished reading Laura Brittain’s blog, An Artful Life. Laura is a Creative Genius, not to mention a great Mom, a good cook, and a vibrant artist. God has definitely blessed her with many talents.
She’s written a funny and creative post,
Chalkboard Refrigerator Project. It’s all about why she transformed her frig into a chalkboard. I couldn’t help but get charged up about doing the same project. Talk about turning lemons into lemonade, she’s done it!

Max and I do a majority of our school work at the dining table. Many times, I wish we had something bigger than our small dry erase boards for illustrations. Changing the surface of the frig into a chalkboard would be ideal!

Go over and read Laura’s blog,
Chalkboard Refrigerator Project. Her blog is always a good read. And be sure to check out her artwork! It’s beautiful and bright, just like Laura.