Helping Children Keep The Savior In The Christmas Holiday‏

We are entering another wonderful Christmas season filled with music and lights, parties and presents. But the glitter of the season should never dim our sight and prevent us from truly seeing the true meaning of this wonderful season!

As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day-Saints, we along with many other religions and cultures, celebrate the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ.  As young parents, we searched for ways to help our children learn, know, and feel the real or true meaning of this wonderful time of year. We came across an idea from a school project. The teacher had a 'Christmas Chain' made by the students to help them count down the days until the Christmas break. Then each child could take the remaining chain home to count down the days until that wonderful day, Christmas day would come!

We took inspiration from this, and made our own Christmas chain, but with a few tweaks. As many use advent calendars with pictures of our savior, we used a simple red and green construction paper chain. On each link to the chain, we included a scripture references to the birth of Jesus Christ. Prophesies of our Saviors birth have been included in the scriptures years before His birth.
As members of the "Mormon" church, we are blessed to have another set of scriptures of these prophesies that were given from prophets from the America's. The Book of Mormon (another testament of Christ ) contains accounts and prophesies just as the Bible does.

Each evening we would cut of one link of the chain, and read the scripture reference included on that link. We would spend just a short time each day remembering and thinking about His birth, and the reason for the season! This was such an awesome way for us to help bring Him back into our daily lives, and helped us draw closer as a family.

Here is a link to scripture references to the prophecies and the events of the Savior' birth that will help you and your family throughout the month of December:
Scripture References To The Birth of The Savior

You can use these scriptures in any order or any way you like. Our family saved the Luke 2 account for Christmas Eve. I don't recall a time where the spirit was stronger in our home!

I know my Savior lives! I am so grateful for Him and His life and example! The small, simple things we do in our lives to remember Him, help us to feel His love, help us to be better people, and have His light in our lives!

Submitted by:  Lee Tanner