Giving to Christ all year round...Where we came up with the idea!!

Thank you so much for coming to our Ward Christmas Party!! We hope you enjoyed the food, the program, and the visits.  Thanks for all the help bringing the food too!!  We hope you enjoyed the DVD.  We wanted to help you and your family make Christ the focus of Christmas this year. It's what we all should do, but somehow we seem to put our efforts in other places with all the hustle and bustle surrounding this wonderful season.  We also wanted to give you a way to help your family focus on Christ all year long.
Kathy Hansen spent countless hours putting the DVD together for all of us to enjoy.  Please, if you get a chance, thank her for her time and efforts.  She has a real talent and it helps to have the knowledge on how to run your computer.  And she does!!  Thank you Kathy!!  

I read an article in "LDS Living" this last month.  This is what gave us the idea for

"Giving to Christ all year round."

The woman that wrote the article, (Merrilee Boyack) told of her Christmas a few years ago.  She was sitting by the tree on Christmas night, completely exhausted and weary, after a full day of excitment that normally accompanies Christmas day. She could hear the kids upstairs playing with their toys.  The thought came to her.."Where was Christ in our Christmas this year?"  "What did we do that helped us focus on His life and His birth?"  She really couldn't remember much of anything.

She promised herself that she would try to change the upcoming year,

to make Christmas more CHRIST centered. 

She was visiting a friend a couple of months later when she noticed a Christmas stocking still hanging on their mantle.  She mentioned to her friend that she had forgotten to take the stocking down with all of the other Christmas decorations. 

"No" she replied, "I didn't forget.  We leave it up all year long.  Whenever we do something for Christ, we write it down and put it in the stocking.  It reminds us that we can celebrate the life of Christ all year long by what we do each day.  Then on Christmas Eve we take our stocking down and read to each other the gifts we gave to Christ during the year." 

After her visit, Merrilee liked the idea so much that she wrote a book called
"12 gifts for Christ" by Merrilee Browne Boyack

(story recalled from memory, may not be exact!!)

 

Hopefully this may give you some ideas on what you can do as a family, or personally, to focus on Christ all year round!!