A New Christmas Story

The other day my daughter came and asked me if she could do "stickers on my computer." By this she means she wants to use the clip art in Word. As I was setting her up she said she wanted to use Jesus stickers because it is Christmas. So I typed "Jesus" in the clip art search box and left her to do her thing. She is getting pretty good with Word. She picked out four clip art pictures:

After picking them she needed a little help making them larger and then she wanted to print them out in color. Then she wanted to "read" the story to us, first Daddy, then me. Daddy came away from the story with a grin, so I knew this was going to be good. After she told me the story I asked her if we could write it down so I would be able to remember it. She wasn't too keen on this, but she did write down the first line herself and then dictated the others to me. So here for your reading pleasure is my daughter's Christmas story:

one Day There wus in egg in Jesus crADL.
(One day there was an egg in Jesus' cradle.)
The house was very dark.
All the animals came to sleep with Jesus.
The plus (the star) glowed in the dark; every night it did.
Jesus was fast asleep. He made those four lines. (by snoring)

There is so much about this story that I love, but I'll focus in on three of them.

• It shows me how much she relies on visual cues to understand and therefore sometimes misinterprets what is going on. I'm pretty sure that's supposed to be baby Jesus' head in the manger, not an egg. She's right, though, it does look like an egg, and why shouldn't there be an egg in a stable manger? I suppose there were chickens around...I don't know.
• I love the very real sense of personhood that she envisions for Jesus. No halos and meek and mild baby here. He's fast asleep and snoring away. Did you ever imagine Jesus snoring? I wonder if he did...
• It's another misinterpretation, but very special in its own way. That's a crucifix, not the Christmas star (or a plus, for that matter), but we do often show the Christmas star in a cross shape, and why is that? Have you ever seen a star with a cross shape? I'm not too much of a star gazer, but I have never seen anything but brilliant points of light, twinkling to be sure, but pretty much circular if anything. Meanwhile, isn't it good to remember Easter even as we celebrate Christmas? His birthday wouldn't be so special if the whole purpose of His coming wasn't what it was. He came with the express purpose of paying the penalty of our sins by dying on a cross. He not only died but He also conquered death by coming back to life on Easter morning. How fabulous to be reminded even as He lays in a manger (cuddling His egg and snoring?) that He came to fill us with abundant life.

This story, by the way, is now wrapped and sitting next to Santa's cookies and milk. Yes, she made a story about Jesus to give to Santa. I love it.

Merry Christmas to you and all of those you love.

May you be blessed with His peace and goodwill this season.

Amen.

All I Want for Christmas...

Today, I thought I'd join the Special Needs Blog Hop. This blog carnival happens most Thursdays, though this is the last one for 2010. Hopefully I'm linking up correctly. Seems like each of these works a little differently, and I'm still learning!

Anyway, the theme for this week is "What I Want For Christmas." I won't try to get around it, there's a long wish list in my head. Free babysitting for a year comes to mind...or housecleaning...either way I'd be happy. We could use a new car, a new T.V, new shoes, and new bikes for everyone. There's no way most of that's going to happen. The new shoes we might be able to take a swing at. This year has been tighter than ever money-wise, and I've been calling it a "skinny" Christmas - just in my own head until writing it down here. Bearing in mind the circumstances of the majority of the world we are still in the lap of luxury, but for us it is on the modest side.

However, my daughter is becoming more and more generous. I have written before about how she loves to give gifts. It is really a true mark of her personality. She simply enjoys giving to other people. The gifts are sometimes a little odd, but they come from a generous spirit. Today I told her that I was packing up some gifts for her cousins for Christmas and she immediately wanted to give them something, too. Unprompted she said she would think about what she could give them. I thought she would make something since she doesn't really have any money and we weren't going shopping again anyway. She found some gifts (don't want to ruin the surprise) and then insisted on wrapping them herself.

What I really want for Christmas is to stir up this same generous spirit in myself. I don't want our skinny wallets to steal the joy of giving from me. I don't want to hold onto things with grasping fearful fingers. Instead I want to give freely knowing that it is just one more way I can be more as God intended me to be. He gave us this example:

He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all - how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?.. Romans 8:32a (NIV)

So for Christmas I don't so much want to receive as to truly give.

What do you want for Christmas?

Book Review - Santa's Favorite Story

I know some families don't like to mix Santa with their Christmas celebrations. Some parents only want to focus their kids' short attention spans on the true story of Christmas, and the real reason that we celebrate, the birth of Jesus.

I grew up in a family that was able to have a lot of fun with Santa, while still always keeping Jesus' birth at the primary focus of our celebrations. We sat on Santa's lap (at an embarrassingly old age, even, for me). I remember driving around on Christmas Eve and teasing each other that the red warning lights on the radio towers  were really Rudolph's nose. I also remember every year for quite a while trying to devise plans to catch my parents in the act of playing Santa...and never succeeding because my brother would always take the first watch. With all of this fun, my favorite parts of Christmas were attending the candlelight Christmas Eve service at church, singing Christmas carols about Jesus' birth, and setting up our nativity scene. There was never any doubt about what Christmas was all about. I am striving to have this same focus and fun with my kids as they grow. Last year we made a cake for Jesus' Birthday. This year we've started making advent paper chains with lines from this poem on each link. I read these lines:

It isn't the tinsel,
The wrapping or things,
That make me feel happy and
Make my heart sing.

The reason is simple...

to my daughter and asked her what the reason is and she said, "Because it is Jesus' Birthday!" She knows...but she is still excited to sit on Santa's lap again this year.

I guess all of this is just introduction to say how much I like the idea of Santa's Favorite Story. It tells the story of some woodland animals who find Santa taking a cat nap one snowy afternoon before Christmas Eve. They are worried that his fatigue will spell the end of Christmas, and Santa assures them that Christmas is not really about him. Then he tells them the "real story" of Christmas, how Jesus was born in Bethlehem and laid in a manger, where some shepherds found Him and came to worship. The animals all learn that Jesus gave us the greatest gift by coming as a baby that first Christmas night, and Santa gains fresh energy to carry out his duties on Christmas Eve, reminded of the true spirit of Christmas himself. I love the story line and the artwork in the book. I think the message is simple and that any child will understand that Christmas is all about Jesus' birth.

My one frustration is that the story of Jesus' birth as related in Santa's Favorite Story isn't quite aligned with the accounts in the Gospels (especially Luke 2). The shepherds hear "a voice" and follow a star to Bethlehem rather than seeing a choir of angels who instruct them to go there and find Jesus in a manger. Maybe Santa's sleepy state makes him roll the shepherds and wise men into one? I don't know...it just seems to me that if Santa is going to tell the animals the true story of Christmas it might as well be the True Story. Nonetheless it is a fun take on blending the fun of Santa with the true reasons we celebrate Christmas.

What do you think? How does your family handle this aspect of Christmas?

A picture is worth...

a thousand words, or so they say...In celebration of that, in hopes that I might make it to bed before midnight for the first time in weeks, and in hopes of wishing all of you a very Merry Christmas I give you this...We'll return to our regularly scheduled program on Sunday.

Remembering Christ at Christmas

This past Sunday I taught Sunday School for my daughter's class. I've been working out a new curriculum for our younger children's class (ages 4-7) to try to make things work better for the children and the teachers. Someday I'll share more about that, but for now I wanted to focus on a lesson that I learned. Starting the last Sunday in November we've been talking about Christmas in Sunday School. November 29 was the first Sunday of Advent, so we made advent wreaths and talked about how God told the prophets that Jesus was coming 700 years before He was born. December 6 we talked about how God sent an angel to tell Mary that she would give birth to Jesus. December 13 we talked about how Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem and that Jesus was born in a stable. This Sunday I told the story of the angels telling the shepherds that Jesus had been born, and that the shepherds went to Bethlehem to find Jesus (scroll down for the cotton ball sheep). Through all of these stories and crafts we've been focused on telling the children about Jesus being born, but I wondered if they had connected Jesus' birth with Christmas.

At the end of my story I asked the children if they knew what was happening on Friday.

"Christmas" they all shouted..."Santa will come"..."We get to open presents"...etc. I tried to draw the connection back to Jesus' birth, but their minds were full of Santa and presents and Christmas trees...We continued the lesson, but I struggled with making that connection stronger for them.

I am not one to rule out Santa as part of our holiday traditions...this is how my very strong Christian parents raised us. We had Santa gifts, put out the plate of cookies, and as we got older my brother and I schemed to try to catch Santa in the act, but we also always knew that the far greater reason for Christmas was to celebrate Jesus' birthday. As I reflected on that heritage I remembered some dear friends who used to share their home with us on Christmas Eve. In their family they had a tradition of making a birthday cake for Jesus and sharing it together on Christmas Eve.

Now, my daughter loves birthdays...her own and anyone else's, and there is no more hard and fast way to prove that it's someone's birthday except to make a cake and sing the Happy Birthday song to them. I googled it and there are a lot of ideas of just how to do this. I'll probably try a much simpler version of this one. We'll be trying this out this year to see if we can't refocus our child's mind, if ever so briefly, on the Greatest Gift that we received that first Christmas, rather than the trinkets under the tree. I'll let you know how it goes.

Book Review - The Little Drummer Mouse

In the spirit of The Season I thought I'd post a review about a Christmas book. It is not exactly addressed to special needs, but it does address issues of self worth and giving our best. Mercer Mayer's "The Little Drummer Mouse" is the story of the littlest mouse of a large brood who is always being teased because he is small and slow. His mother, trying to keep him safe gives him a drum to play on so she'll know where he is. He loves his little drum and plays on it all the time which in itself adds stigma from his peers and gets him into trouble with others who do not understand. The animals learn that The Greatest King of All is going to be born and they set up a big celebration in His honor, but they do not recognize the poor man and woman who travel through their forest as royalty. The littlest mouse figures it out and goes on his own to find the new baby "just for a peek". There he has the opportunity to play his drum for the baby and inspires everyone present to make music for the baby. Thus the slow, little, misunderstood mouse becomes a leader and gives his best to the King.

It is not a strictly Biblical account of the Nativity, but the message that God cares deeply for the least of these is a strong one.

It is a touching story, and one that I hope will encourage my daughter to give her best even when she is feeling small, picked on, and mistreated. Even the slowest among us have a special gift, one that we all need to receive...a reminder that we too can always give our best.

I want to close by asking each of you who reads this post to pray for one among our ranks who is desperately hurting. I cannot share details, but God knows those. Prayer is an amazing gift that you can give anonymously.

Sunday Digest 11

1) As a follow up to an earlier series of posts on achievement (starts here with links at the bottom for parts 2-4), I wanted to let you know about the new website for the film Race to Nowhere (formerly known as Slipping Behind). There is a petition there you can sign if you feel the importance of refocusing our educational system so that children can learn and be valued as individuals.

2) As a follow up to Thanksgiving, check out these thankful moments gathered by Autism Speaks from parents, grandparents, teachers, therapists and others who love someone with autism. Warning: you may need some tissue handy.

3) These tips for supporting autistic family members through the sometimes hectic holidays seemed generally helpful. We're trying the stepwise decorating idea just out of necessity...it took us so long to find everything yesterday that we didn't have time to set it up. Today the tree is up, but only half lit. You get the idea.

4) On a related note, here is a gift guide for special needs children ages 1-5. Over 5? - sorry you're on your own. Wait a minute!! Not fair!! Seriously - if you know a good resource for older children please leave a comment with a link below!

5) Not exactly Christmas music, but an interesting idea for letting special needs children experience the ability to make music.

Sunday Digest 10

I am trying to stay in denial that "the holidays" are just around the corner. My holiday season actually begins back in September when my husband's birthday kicks off a monthly cascade of big events that I never feel quite prepared for...Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmast, all three kids birthdays, Valentine's Day...then I can breathe. I guess we've made it through the first two events, but those are just the lead up to the big hitters. I'm not completely following a holiday theme with this post, but I guess in some attempt to get myself in the spirit (read panic) of the season, I'll point you to the following links:



Holidays/Family or Social gatherings in general:

1) It seems like the holidays often make a perfect storm for hurtful comments and the ensuing havoc on personal relationships. This article helped me think about some ways to respond and offers advice on what to say "instead" of hurtful (even if well-intentioned) comments.



Thanksgiving "related":

2) One thing I'm thankful is around for my child today: Matteo's Dream playground, right here in our area. A while ago I blogged about a park like this up in Seattle. A friend of mine who helps organize Buddy Play invited us to attend an event at Matteo's Dream to make me aware of this special park just 20 minutes up the road for us. We went and of course my daughter loved it. She would live at a park if we'd let her, and one of her best buddies was there to boss around. One point that I hadn't considered before about a completely accessible playground is that parents or grandparents with physical challenges can more easily interact with their children, too. I saw a grandmother there with her motorized scooter and she was able to keep tabs on the child she was supervising.



3) One thing I'm thankful will be around for my child in the future: Capernaum, a ministry of Young Life that reaches out to special needs students. A friend of mine told me about this ministry some time ago, and this article jogged my memory. This story is specifically about a Capernaum group starting in Tempe, AZ. You can find out more about Capernaum at large here.



4) Some quotes and ideas about keeping the focus of Thanksgiving on gratitude, not turkey. I do not theologically agree with all of the sources of these quotes, or even with all of the quotes, but the goal of remembering that Thanksgiving should be about giving thanks is key.



Preparing for Christmas:

5) This year Advent begins on November 29 - the Sunday after Thanksgiving. I think Advent can be an excellent way to keep the focus of Christmas on Christ rather than the presents under the tree. This article gives some suggestions of ways to celebrate Advent with your child. I think they could be easily adapted to special needs children. I'm hoping to try one of the calendar ideas with my daughter. I'll let you know how it goes...