Church Christmas Program

It has been a busy month! After the Thanksgiving festivities and celebrations were over, [john's birthday was on Thanksgiving day this year...oops, no pictures! too busy hostessing the party!] our crunch time began. The Christmas program has become our "church baby" these last couple of years here. And this last month usually brings with it late nights and many refigurations to scripts, staging and sequencing of the program. It's not like we do a huge production since our group is quite small. But we have enjoyed trying different avenues from Readers Theater to Puppets. And we, rather John, has to pretty much write the whole thing to fit our group. So this year was the puppets! John and I made 2 gift puppets and a tree puppet made out of foam, with workable mouths. Of course, John figured all that out since that is his avenue of expertise! This year was a bit on the light side of telling the Christmas story. So the puppets added some cute elements. The puppets were caught up with themselves in some way or another [big bob was the biggest, gabby glitter was the glitziest, the tree was the grandest] but they soon learned that true signifigance is not in outward appearance but that which is of the heart; especially since Christ was born in such a lowly place and came to earth to die for each of us. We also added a shadow stage which was used as a visual aide while the Scripture passages were being read. You can see some of the cut outs in the picture. It's the white king on the throne and Mary on a donkey. I had never seen one before and it was really neat. So this is the only picture I have right now of our great group of kids [the children's class and the teens]. We also had our children's teacher, Michelle, help out as well as Doug & Crystal doing the music part. They all did a fabulous job! We also sang a beautiful song that Doug & a friend of his wrote in college called, "O Behold Him." The first part of it goes like this:

O Behold Him in the stable; O behold the King of Kings. Angels from the realms of glory 'Round the tiny Baby sing. Shepherds come to see the story, wise men by a star are led. O behold Salvation's story Lying in the manger bed. O behold Him, meek and lowly, Dying on Mount Calvary. Died to make the sinner holy: Christ the Savior sent for me! Crowds around behold His anguish; Soldiers see His misery. O behold Redemption's story From the manger to the tree.

This Christmas I have been reminded not just to remember the nativity story of Christ, but also the whole picture of why he came to earth. The beginning, the stable, to the end, the cross. May I learn to "Behold Him" each and every day as I do during this holiday.

I love to shower my kids with neat little gifts and special things. And I am reminded more and more that the most important thing I can give them is Christ and what He did for us; whether that is through my teaching, my training, the daily activities or my words & spirit, I need to exemplify Christ ultimately! And this is such a wonderful opportunity to do that.