While my parents, brother, grandparents, aunts, uncle, and cousins soaked up the warm sun and water in Arizona and Florida….
And posted pictures like this on Christmas Day:
We stayed in freezing Missouri and hosted Christmas at our house!
We had 6 grown ups(Jim, Courtney, Grandpa Monty, Grandma Jenny, Uncle Logan, Aunt Mary Esta) and 1 baby(Abigail) in our small house. Sleeping arrangements were a bit…interesting. But, everything else was perfect. We ate way too much delicious food, exchanged way too many awesome presents, and enjoyed each other’s company way too much. (and I’m not listing these things because I know it’s highly likely they will read this at some point- it’s the truth)
We had a lovely Christmas Eve service at our church. One where Abigail belted out at the top of her lungs the 3rd verse of Away in a Manger(aww), shouted hello to “baby Claire” about 10 times while her family read the Christmas Story and lit the advent candle(loud, but, uh, cute?), and started screaming and wailing during “What Child is This?” because I wouldn’t let her leave our row(Not cute at all).
~Okay, fast forward to Christmas Morning~
Going through her stocking from Mama and Daddy
Looking adoringly at her new Winnie the Pooh babies. Kanga, Gopher, and Owl. Completely random, but 25c at a garage sale. Shh!
Playing with her next favorite toy that morning. A new little people set. I asked her if the little girl had a name. She said, “Sarah! And Sarah had a baby boy named Isaac!” I’m glad to see she is retaining some of those bible stories we’ve been reading 😉
Abigail opening up her “Gold gift”
We decided last year that to help limit the amount of things we buy and to help keep Jesus the center(as He very well should be) of our celebration, we instituted the “3 gift rule”.
The Magi brought baby(or toddler) Jesus 3 gifts. Gold, for a king. Frankincense, for a priest. Myrrh, for His death.
We choose three presents to help tie all those things together.
Her gold gift is her one really big, excited, wished for item. This year, it was a Cinderella doll and dress up dress.
(Not Pictured)
Her Frankincense gift is to help her grow in her relationship with Christ. She got the Jesus Storybook Bible. We’ve already read some of it and I broke down crying the night we read about Jesus being born, it was so beautifully written.
Her Myrrh gift is to help her with cleanliness and purification, so this year she got another hooded towel.
This is approximately 2 seconds after being taken out of the box
She’s still indifferent to her Cinderella doll. It takes her a while to warm up to non-stuffed animal babies. But, oh that dress up dress. She was in love.
With Daddy and Cinderella Doll and seeing herself in the mirror for the first time in her pretty ball gown.
Oh, that sweet face. I die.
I have a completely precious video of Abigail telling us the Christmas Story before we opened our gifts that I need to get uploaded here. It made my Mama heart so proud and it thrilled me to my very core. To know that at 2 years old Abigail already knows the most important story there is.
Jesus came. For us.
And it thrills her, too. Praise the Lord.
Merry Christmas from the Spenas!
I love that last picture!! SO perfect!! We talked about starting to do 3 gifts with the kids but i love that you have meaning behind the 3. I'm going to try to do that this year. Miss Abigail is soo stinkin cute in her Cinderella dress.
Thank you!
Here is the link if you are interested in reading more. I tried to find it before I made this post but had a hard time finding it. Here it is! It has some great gift ideas to help flesh out the "theme" a little bit more.
http://www.todayschristianwoman.com/articles/2002/december/beggingmyrrh.html