The Manger and Christmas Past

Kylene reminded me last night about a Christmas tradition in our family when the girls were growing up. I made a manger out of Popsicle sticks. Then I would fill a jar with straw and place it next to the manger. During the whole month of December you were to do something nice and ANONYMOUS for someone in the family. When you did, you could put a piece of straw in the manger. The goal was to have a manger full of straw for Jesus on Christmas morning. The idea was that each time you did something nice anonymously for someone else, you were doing it for Jesus.

I think we started the tradition when Kylene was about 4 and continued until the girls were all teenagers. Sometimes they'd groan about it but I didn't take them very seriously because it wouldn't be long before they'd start enjoying finding things to do for others. I limited it to family because, to be honest, family is often the most neglected. It's easy to do nice things for friends and even strangers at Christmastime, but not as easy to serve family.

This was a simple way to keep Jesus the focus of Christmas. In spite of all the concerts, programs, parties of the season, there was always an empty manger in the background slowly being filled with hay. It also encouraged the girls to nice things for their sisters without bragging about it. I was often privy to their sneaky good deeds. I'd watch them make each other's beds or wash dishes or put their things away and they really enjoyed it. The sneaky factor was a great draw.

I think this tradition helped keep us from getting quite so grumpy with each other during December too. It's hard to be crabby and do nice things for someone else.



So, here's to Christmas past and a manger full of hay.

Training the Beast - Click

I decided that, if I'm going to have a teeny tiny dog, she's going to be a well behaved teeny tiny dog. So we are going to obedience training classes for the next 8 weeks. This class uses the 'clicker method'. Basically, when the dog does what you want, you click your clicker and give them a treat. I'm intrigued to watch this play out. I grew up training dogs for obedience and we taught the dog the word, then the action. Here they learn the action and you add the word to it after they get the action down.

I am in a very small class. There are 2 of us plus the instructor. The other dog's name is Sadie and she's a German Shepherd puppy. She's 3 months old and could easily think of Beast as a squeakie toy. Beast is now 5 months old and just barely 2 lbs. Last night was the requisite boring introduction followed by instructions for using the clicker.

When I got home after the class, I showed Kevin what Beast and I had learned. I immediately learned that Ranger does NOT like the clicker. Ranger is already well trained. He's so good that, if he misbehaves and I tell him that he's grounded, he'll go outside by himself and stay until I let him come back in!! Maybe the clicker is an affront to his intelligence.

Beast may have a teeny tiny brain, but it works amazingly well. She's already learned that, when I call her name, she comes running to me and sits right in front of me to await further instructions (ok, to await a treat... the other will come). It's actually pretty cool to watch her come bounding in and sit quietly. Very not little doglike, but pretty impressive.

I was going to try to pull a spiritual analogy out of this, but really, I'm glad God doesn't use the clicker method on us. However, I do want to be better at coming running when He calls me and then sitting quietly at His feet.

Mary and Moses

My sister-in-law, Jennifer, sent me a package the other day.  I figured it was Christmas gifts for the grandkids so I didn't open it.  I thought it'd be easier to wait until the Christmas tree was up and I could put the gifts under the tree.

Jennifer called me today to make sure I'd opened the package.  It turns out that she'd sent the g'kids a bunch of Bible time costumes!  You could mix and match them all.  She even told me that she'd made sure she had enough for our own Christmas pageant.

What a great idea!  Josh and Julia tried them on (Randall acquiesed to trying on the king costume for a few minutes) and really had a good time playing Bible dress up.  I talked with them about the costumes as we tried them on.  Julia loved the Mary costume and wanted her picture taken.  Josh decided that the costume that could've been Herod the King looked more like Moses to him.  And he didn't want to be a bad king.  He wanted to be Moses, you know, 'the guy who climbed Mount Everest'!

So here are Mary and Moses.  (Julia's nose is red because she was Rudolph in preschool this morning and didn't want it washed off).

Oh and by the way, the baby Jesus looks a lot like Baby Belle and Moses wore Skechers.

Peace Offering Accepted

Jaime made me laugh today.  Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  We've invited new friends from church who have no local family.  We used to do that every year and thought it'd be a neat thing to do again.  We've never gotten in the habit of expecting the kids to spend Thanksgiving with us.  First of all, we do realize that they have their own families and secondly, we figure it makes asking for Christmas afternoon easier!

Kylene and Trey are joining us and I thought it'd be nice if Jaime and Slade came over too since this family has 2 boys close to Russell and Randall's ages and the husband works at LeTourneau.  So I asked them a few times to join us.  I tried hard not to use guilt.  (mostly, because it makes me end up looking dumb but also because it doesn't work on Jaime and Slade).  They decided to go to Slade's aunt's house and then they'll join us for the Cowboys game later in the afternoon.

Yesterday I got a sweet phone call from Rebecca.  She asked if she and Matthew and Audrey could join us for Thanksgiving!  I was so tickled because she felt comfortable calling.  And of course we'd love to have them join us.  So it's going to be a nice group and I'm really looking forward to it.

Jaime called me today to tell me that she encouraged Rebecca to call us so that they could be a peace offering to me for Jaime not coming tomorrow for dinner!  That made me laugh.  And the peace offering was happily accepted!

Happy Thanksgiving!