Truth In The Tinsel

For the Christmas and Advent season this year, our family has decided to focus full force on Jesus.  Elf on a Shelf and Santa can wait.  We're laying the groundwork of the "true meaning of Christmas". Growing up Lutheran, we celebrated Advent.  I didn't realize that everyone didn't celebrate Advent. So, if you don't know, Advent is the weeks leading up to Christmas where we focus on Jesus' birth and events leading up to it. 

I had been looking for a way to teach B(3  years old) an age appropriate way of teaching about Advent and Jesus' birth when a friend of mine from It's Our Long Story posted on her Instagram a give away link for something that looked very appealing. 

After doing some reading, I decided that Truth In The Tinsel would be perfect for our family.  The Truth in the Tinsel gives us 24 days of Jesus, lessons, crafts, special time, and memories leading up to Christmas.  It's so important to us to lay this special and true groundwork for our kids.    Each day has a scripture passage, directions to make an ornament, and a talking point that helps get the message into the heart of the kids.  

I got B a prelit 3ft Christmas tree for his room to put the ornaments on that we make during our lessons and he looooooves it!  I can hear him at nap time and bedtime talking about his ornaments and counting the lights.

We finished day 3 last night, and I'm totally amazed by the amount of information he has taken in and how when asked, he can tell me all about the past three days.  

Each day, we make a simple ornament (as instructed in the book) during our quick lesson.  B has done great with this!  Here are the first three ornaments:

Day 1, Light

Day 1: We talked about light and how the world was in darkness before Jesus.   B remembers that "Jesus is the light of the world"

Day 2, The Crown

Day 2: We talked about God's kingdom and that a king would come who would rule forever.  We also talked about how the king would have many names.  B remembers Jesus is also called the "Prince of Peace"

Day 3, Zechariah- mom fail on this one.

 

Day 3: We learn about Zechariah and how the angel Gabriel spoke to him about the miracle that would happen for he and Elizabeth. Since Zechariah did not believe him, Gabriel made Zechariah unable to speak until the baby was born.  What b remembers is that Zechariah couldn't talk until the baby is here.  He also remembers something about Elizabeth.  

On day 3 I didn't have all of the right supplies, which is silly because at the beginning of the book there is an entire page that tells you a list of supplies and then another page that tells you which supplies are needed on each day.  Oops. We call that a mom fail.

I am a HUGE fan of the Truth in the Tinsel.  It's not too late to start, if you are interested!  Also, if you don't want to get all of the supplies for the crafts, you can download the printable ornaments and color them with your child.  You can skip around, do more than one lesson a day, take supplies with you if you're traveling.  Seriously, this is easy and awesome.  It's an eBook and is cheap. no excuses.