Tying Heartstrings, Christmas in July Style

Saturday morning the kids woke up to 'Christmas in a July' in the living room. There were a handful of decorations, the little people Nativity, sausage gravy bubbling away and a few gifts on the mantle.

They were super surprised and excited

Charley was most excited to see his rifle shooting snowman.

I posted a couple of pics on Facebook and got some reactions about how creative I was and what a 'cool mom' I am. That seems like a funny reaction to me because I consider myself to be neither overly creative nor cool. A lot of times I don't even have the energy for these kind of shenangians.

So why do it?

I wasn't sure myself until I heard our pastor's sermon yesterday. The theme was choosing to go God's direction or veering off and on your own direction, and how the latter never really works. I wish the podcast was currently available online but there is usually a bit of delay on it being posted. 

At a certain point he was talking about how parents make decisions for our kids and do we choose God's choice or our own choice. He specifically mentioned overscheduling kids, which hit home because I am currently trying to perfect what our weekly calendar will look like for the fall.

Ballet, Gymnastics or both? Hmmm..

He asked do we do the things we do to encourage our kids and help them to become strong well rounded Godly adults or do we just do it to stay busy?

Initially I had planned Christmas in July as a way to keep busy and fill our last moments of summer with as much fun as possible. I knew that it would be raining all day and also that Jeremy would be gone for several hours on his flying lessons. We had no errands, no playdates, no plans. And so why not doing something fun?

A day sitting around watching tv is something I enjoy as much as the next person, but I soon start to wonder about serving God's purpose for me of training my children.

Even if today's training is all about having fun together and tying heartstrings. It's better than nothing, I suppose. 

So maybe it wasn't just about fun after all. Maybe Christmas in July will mean something to them. To us too.

Their childhood seems to be fleeting more and more and I don't want to waste any time. There's time for teaching, discipline, character building, activities. But there's also got to be time for just hanging out and enjoying each other. Being a family.

Our purpose for Saturday was to recreate Christmas and we did. We opened gifts, made storebought (gasp!) cookies, listened to and sang music, wore our sweaters, and watched several Christmas movies. Most importantly, we read the Christmas story from the bible.

To remember why we do this, why we are given grace and love to do every other silly fun thing we want to. Because every day is a blessing.

I don't want them to forget that.

We made a few Christmas cards to give to our friends to remind them to. That God loves them year round.

And there's still time for family.

Merry Christmas from the Benningtons!