Tag Archives: stable

Journey to the Manger: Celebrate Jesus!

On Christmas morning, Jackson and Lauren stand by our Journey to the Manger calendar, complete with Jesus!

On Christmas morning, Jackson and Lauren stand by our Journey to the Manger calendar, complete with Jesus!

Our Journey to the Manger has finally reached the stable, and we are celebrating the birth of Jesus this Christmas Day!

When we all woke up this morning, we gathered around our Advent calendar. Jackson reminded us that our Christmas countdown began with our Heavenly Father, and ends today with Jesus. Christmas is wrapped up in the blessings of God! God came to us at Christmas, offering Himself to us so we could personally know Him and feel His love.

Christmas is this:

God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.

– John 3:16

Jesus

Jesus

We celebrate God’s presence today, His salvation and sacrifice! We believe not just that Jesus came for all the world, but that He came for us.

Before we opened our gifts today, we sang Happy Birthday to Jesus and read the Christmas story in Luke 2. Later we will bake a birthday cake for our Savior!

This has been an amazing month of preparation, and now Christmas is here! We want to give special thanks to Focus on the Family and Thriving Family Magazine for the Journey to the Manger Advent Calendar.

May Jesus reign in your hearts this Christmas! It’s time to celebrate!!

Merry Christmas!

Away in a manger

We made a manger tonight, and wrapped our baby tight, with stuffed animals looking on.

We made a manger tonight, and wrapped our baby tight, with stuffed animals looking on.

Christmas Countdown Day 15 focused on the manger. The Son of God’s first baby bed was a feeding trough. In order to help us imagine sweet Baby Jesus’ head laying down in the manger, we recreated the scene. We built a manger out of a woven basket, and added yellow tissue paper like straw. Animals, such as our stuffed Tigger, moose and several sheep, gathered around the manger. Lauren pretended to be Mary and Jackson was Joseph, and we wrapped a baby doll in a towel, just like Jesus was wrapped in strips of cloth. Both Lauren and Jackson took turns holding and rocking the baby Jesus. Then, we placed the baby gently in our manger. We wondered if any animals tickled Jesus’ toes trying to get a snack of hay. Would the straw have been itchy? As we prayed, we thanked God for watching over Jesus as he lay in his first crib the night he was born, and for coming in such a humble way to show He was for all people.

Manger ornament

Manger ornament