Day 3: Balloons and Birthday Cakes in Michigan

Michelle wrote to me about how she wanted to teach her three girls the true mean­ing of Christ­mas. Instead of focus­ing on presents last year, they decided to have a birth­day party for Jesus. They opened one gift a week through­out the month of Decem­ber. Then on Christ­mas Eve, they made a a cake together–a birth­day cake for Jesus. And on Christ­mas morn­ing, they opened one last present, had birth­day cake, and went out­side to let off a whole bunch of helium bal­loons, in honor of Him. I think this is one of the great­est Christ­mas ideas I’ve ever heard, and I am going to plan a neigh­bor­hood bal­loon release late Christ­mas morn­ing. Can you pic­ture how cool that would be?

Any­way, here’s the rest of Michelle’s story: She said she wor­ried that the girls weren’t really get­ting the mes­sage, until one day when she picked her youngest daugh­ter up from school. She had made a paper Santa Claus in her class. Michelle did a dou­ble take when she saw it, because there, right in the mid­dle of Santa’s hat, was a sim­ple draw­ing of the manger, with Mary and Joseph, and the Baby.

Thanks for your story, Michelle.…and I’ll let you know how the bal­loon release goes.