Books

This year Mark and I began to think about Christmas in a new way. It was the first time that Jack and Hannah could vocalize what they understood or didn't understand about Christmas. We wanted them to know that it isn't JUST about getting presents.

I must say I turned 3 shades of red when a few weeks before Christmas we were sitting in the church and the speaker mentioned the word "Christmas." Jack says loudly to me "Santa comes and we get presents." True. But there is more. We told them the story of Jesus, they played with their nativity, and we wanted them to understand gift-giving as well. So we collected some books for some children in an after-school program in Ethiopia. Hannah was excited about this as she loves to talk about anything Ethiopia.

We bought a few that we picked out together at the store.

We also had Jack and Hannah pick out one of their books to give away...

here they are reading them one last time.

Jack gave away his beloved Thomas book.

Then we had a Christmas get together with some friends and asked everyone to bring some books. We had a great time with our friends and were able to collect a big box of books to send.

Now we just hope that Jack doesn't ask for the Thomas book ; )