If You Give to the Least of These....

 

5 Days of Preparing for the Holidays - Gift Giving

 

For today's post on gift-giving, I could write about things that my family has made to share with our friends and loved ones.  We have a lot of fun making little gifts to share, putting gift tags on them, and watching the eyes of the receiver light up when it is given. A few of our favorites to make are:

 

 

Mixes in a Jar

 

 

Homemade Sugar Hand Scrub in a Jar

 

 

Decorated Trays of Cookies

 

 

 

We usually will take a whole day away from school work sometime in mid-December, and spend the day baking cookies and making little gifts. We'll make a big batch of the sugar hand scrub and "jar" it. This year the girls have a few new projects they have seen on Pinterest that we want to add to our activities. 

 

Our family's favorite Christmas gift-giving project is choosing a family to give Christmas gifts to.  We have tried to make it a tradition since the girls were very little. Every year, after deciding on a family, we will buy a few small items, and then deliver on Christmas Eve. We always try to choose someone that could use some encouragement, or has had some trying circumstances that year, or even someone that is all alone. The point is not really to provide gifts to someone in need, as much as it is to provide friendship and encouragement, and share Christ's love.

 

The lesson taught to the children through this endeavour is to honor our Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible teaches us:

 

 Matthew 25:40: "And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

We decided a long time ago to honor the day that remembers Christ's birth in this way. How can we give a gift to Jesus? Since we can't deliver something face to face, the Bible shows us how to give Him a gift - by finding someone to help that He would help if He were present.  This includes people that others often overlook at Christmas time. There's a great blessing in giving to someone who you know is unable to give you anything back. It is pure love that motivates that type of gift giving. It is not an obligatory gift. It is truly a gift given to Jesus.

 

Last year, we were delighted to see that our children, now a little older and wiser, wanted to take on much more of the process of our gift giving.  They picked the families, and decided to take care of two after not being able to settle on one. They used their own money to shop and make purchases.  They wrapped, and we set out one night to deliver. It was a lot of fun. We were driving around together, singing together, and had a great time visiting with the families and delivering the goodies.

 

My prayer is that as the children grow, they will continue this tradition, and also expand on it. I hope that they will always enjoy giving, and the joy it brings, and that it will help them to combat the feelings of greed that are so often seen especially at Christmas.

 

 



Today is the Day!

A day to pray and VOTE!

 “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
― Edmund Burke

5 Days of Preparing for the Holidays - Day 2 - Cooking

I am going to share my family's favorite holiday recipe. One of my children starts talking about this dish in early fall, anticipating the holidays when I will make it. It is always looked for and always one of the first things to be finished off. I typically will make it for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, since we all love it so much! I have thought about making it more often, since it is so well loved, but the kids convinced me to leave it as a special holiday treat so they have something to look forward to.

Sweet Potato Casserole

3 c. mashed sweet potatoes

3/4 c. sugar

1/2 c. butter, melted

2 eggs, beaten

1/2 c. milk

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Topping:

1 c. brown sugar

1/4 c. butter, softened

1/3 c. flour

1/2 - 1 c. chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Boil potatoes whole until tender. Remove and let cool, then mash. Add the rest of the ingredients (except for the topping ingredients) and mix well. Pour into a buttered baking dish. Mix the topping ingredients in a separate bowl, and cover the potatoes with it. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.

One thing I love about this recipe is that it can be made up to several days in advance and refrigerated until the day you need it. Just assemble all the ingredients but do not bake. Take it out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature before baking and it will be perfect!



Allergy Friendly Changes

To accomodate the food allergies in our family, I will be making two sweet potato casseroles - one laden with butter, wheat, and nuts, and the other safe and free from those evils! 

For the allergy safe version, substitute Earth Balance Spread for the butter in both the filling and the topping. It melts easily, has a great taste, and works well in this recipe. There is also a soy free version if needed. For vanilla, be sure to use a gluten-free product. Substitute the milk of your choice for the dairy milk in the filling. The dairy free milk of choice in our house is Silk Vanilla Soy Milk, but any of the safe milks would work. Also, don't shy away from using a vanilla flavored milk, as it will enhance the flavor.  For the topping, use a safe gluten-free flour. We most often use rice flour, but in a recipe like this, it would give a nice texture to use a gluten free baking mix or gluten-free Bisquick. Of course, if you have a nut allergy you can just omit the nuts from the topping. I imagine this would taste good if oats were subbed in for the nuts, but we haven't tried that as oats are not safe for those in our household who will be eating this.

I hope you enjoy my recipe, but even more importantly, I hope you build happy memories with your family this holiday! Don't focus so much on the food and cooking that you stress yourself out and can't enjoy the special times and memories made!







Decorating for the holidays: "The Journey to Bethlehem"

Schoolhouse Review Crew - 5 Days of Preparing for the Holidays

It's snowing here at home today! And the kids are all wrapped in big blankets while doing their schoolwork. Of course, that makes me think ahead to the upcoming holiday season, and what kinds of things I will be preparing for it.

The fondest tradition that we have is making our nativity set the central focus of our Christmas decorations and festivities. We do all we can to keep Jesus at the center of it all. Without even delving into the topic of whether He really came on December 25th or not (which makes a very interesting study!) the truth of the matter is that if you don't plan what you want the top priority to be for your family, then your kids will set their own agenda, which usually includes thinking first and foremost of themselves and what presents they would like to have!

Since this post is on decorating only though, let me get back to the Nativity set... At the beginning of December (or sometime after Thanksgiving) we set up an empty stable. I will put a few animals in it, and maybe a shepherd or two to take care of those animals.  We started out with a lovely ceramic Nativity set, but over the years, have replaced the pieces as we come across resin ones, since little hands and ceramic pieces don't seem to mix well! (Yes, we do have an ear-less donkey that still resides in our little stable, though!)

In the beginning of the month of December, we introduce Mary, Joseph, and one old donkey to the mix, only we do not set them up in the stable. Every night we hide them somewhere in the house, and the kids have to find them. You see - they are on a journey to Bethlehem, so they cannot just sit idly in the stable for weeks! As the days to Christmas draw closer, Mary and Joseph get closer and closer to the stable. They have been found in some interesting places: the fridge, the laundry chute, shopping bags, nestled into a wreath hanging on the wall....

On Christmas Eve, Mary and Joseph finally arrive at the stable, set up centrally in the middle of the living room. Dad reads the Christmas story, and the kids go to bed. While they are sleeping, baby Jesus arrives and takes up residence in the stable, joining Mary, Joseph, an angel, and the animals.

Later on, usually in the evening of Christmas Day, we will bring out the shepherds and add them to the stable setting.  We do bring in the Wise Men later on in the week to complete the story, and then leave the Nativity Set out for the kids to play with and reenact the Christmas story.  Even though they are growing older, they still do enjoy this activity which has become a unique tradition for our family.