Christmas Blessings

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Last night we invited some friends over to celebrate Christmas.  As the kids grow, I am able to do more than just feast so this year I really really wanted to sing a couple of Christmas Carols, have them give out gifts (without receiving!), read a Christmas story and learn to be hosts that focus on blessing others.

We had a very enjoyable and blessed time with our friends and am so glad of the way things turned out.  More than half of our original list of guests could not make it which prompted us to reflect on who else we could share this night with.  We ended up with what we think was a perfect mix of people.  We even met a new couple that we only had heard of from church!



Before the guests arrived, my son announced to me "I love to babysit".  Of course, when the time came for him to actually play with our youngest guest, an 18 month old girl, he announced he had changed his perspectives on babysitting.  It was a great opportunity to explain to him what hosting meant.  I realized up to that point they had seen parties, especially Christmas parties, as yet another chance for them to have people play WITH them, and to get gifts FOR themselves - it was a ME-centered time.

We had made cookies days prior and packaged them with the kids - We also got small gifts and wrapped them and put them under the tree alongside with all the family gifts.  The kids asked me who those gifts were for, and I explained they were for our guests.  I asked them why they thought we had gifts for them...and the answers I got really surprised but enlightened me about how they are processing every single thing they are observing about how we celebrate Christmas.



I reminded them of the greatest gift - Jesus, and how giving out presents is a way for us to be reminded, to remind others and to exercise sharing the way Jesus would like us to.  At first my kids actually told me we give gifts because people don't have anything (I think this came from us giving to missions) and that we give out things that we no longer need (e.g. our 'extras', or things we can 'afford')  So you can imagine I wanted to rectify and stretch this lesson a bit further this year!

It was a precious sight (and it happened so fast!) to see the kids hold the gifts, walk to our guests and give them the gifts.  To encourage them to say "Merry Christmas" and to see that they did not expect anything in return.  I will treasure these memories forever.

Then we sang a couple of Christmas carols.  It was a nice change to what we have been doing in the past few years during parties.  The focus was different.  But I had no idea how the kids were processing this new tradition.  After the singing we decided to have dessert and spontaneously I asked if my 6-year old son would like to pray for the dessert (it crossed my mind why I asked him to pray again when we had prayed for dinner already!).  Without hesitation he said yes, and his prayer went something like this:

"Dear Jesus, thank you that we can worship you together.  Thank you that we can be together and now we are going to have dessert.  Amen"

I stopped listening after 'worship together'.  I was shocked at how insightful the prayer was.

My son got it -- and not only did I feel comforted, proud and thankful to have been a witness of this blessing, I was also reminded of the lessons for myself.  You see, as we were singing, I am not sure us the adults were thinking -- "we are worshipping you Jesus"

Lessons learned, blessings witnessed, feast digested, friendships made and strengthened, and above all, I think Jesus was truly a guest of honour last night.

(Next year's plan?  How about carolling on our street?  We shall see.... ^_^ )

Merry Christmas to you all!!!



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