When Matthew and I started having children, we had to decide, Santa or no Santa. It is fine to teach children to have imaginations me to believe in fictitious characters. However, we looked at how the world had pushed Jesus aside. We shouldn't expect non Christians to teach about Christ and His birth, but it was our duty as Christian parents to make sure that our children knew that CHRISTmas is about God loving His creation, and sending Jesus to redeem His people.
Matthew and I decided that we would begin by telling the story of St. Nicholas. We let the girls know that Santa Claus is based off of St. Nicholas. We never said Santa wasn't real, but we didn't make a big deal out of him either. In the end, the girls caught on quickly to understanding that Daddy and Mama are Santa.
When the elf started, it didn't make sense to me to start something like that with the girls when they really haven't believed in Santa. Also, I have reservations about how people make the elf so mischievous. I could be wrong, but I thought the elf was meant to be spying on the children to make sure they were being nice, not naughty. But the elf is being naughty! My girls would not get away with making the messes and such that the elf makes.
I liked the idea of the fun that the elf could be. My friend Jenn, who writes for Live in The Round (
liveintheround.com), and I began talking about this one day, and we talked about doing something with the Wise Men. The thought was formulating. Here is what my family has done for the past few years.
On December 1st, I set out my Nativity set, minus 2 Wise Men. With the 2 Wise Men, I set them on the table with a note. Here is one of the notes:
We let the girls name them. Alice picked a name from the Bible. She chose Elijah because she sees him as a wise man. Now Bethany wanted a girl, and she came up with Belle. We talked her into letting that be short for Belshazzar, hence the parentheses.
The girls are fully aware that I (and sometimes Matthew) am the one moving the men around each night, but they look forward to finding them each morning. Here are some of the things I've done with these wise men:
They reminded the girls to brush their teeth.
They climbed up to the star to see if they could find Jesus from the star.
They consulted the Girls' The Gospel Story Bible by Marty Machowski. (A favorite of our family)
They studied the stars.
They stopped for a snack.
They made a tent to sleep in.
These are just a few of the fun things that Elijah and Belle have done on their adventures. I can't wait to come up with more ideas for them to do this year! On Christmas morning, the wise men can be found in the Nativity scene, and yes, I know that they didn't find Jesus until He was closer to the age of 2, but I figure, they came with the set, I will use them since they followed a star to find Jesus. I guess you could use the shepherds instead.
By the way, yes, these guys are breakable. I'm currently looking for affordable cloth or action figure-like Nativity pieces. I'm limited as to what I can do with these guys. 😒
