About six weeks before Christmas this year we started studying attributes of Jesus Christ as listed in Preach My Gospel. We took 4-5 days for each attribute reading scriptures, quotes and discussing how to apply them and why they were so important in our lives. At the end of each attribute session we opened a Christmas ornament we found to represent that attribute. (Many of them were stretched connections, so for my records: faith was a treasure map ornament because you have to trust the map and move forward to find the treasure. Humility was a pair of headphones because humble people listen and are receptive to whisperings of the spirit. Virtue was a camera because goodness is recorded regardless of who is watching. Hope was a kitchen mixer because you mix something together in hopes of something good to eat in return. Diligence was a set of golf clubs because to get good at things (like golf) you must work diligently. Obedience was a car because you have to follow the rules if you want to drive. Patience was a container of TicTacs to hang on the tree and we had to patiently wait for each new day to eat a TicTac. Knowledge was books, charity was a heart.)
Tom and I had a hard time determining what our Christmas day activity was going to be this year. I knew I wanted some sort of closure on our study of Christ's attributes and my other idea was to use some sort of decoder activity. We threw ideas back and forth throughout the month without anything really feeling exactly right. The Thursday night before the kids got out of school a complete, perfect idea came like lightning. I was thankful, but suddenly in a hurry! I only had one day to pull it off without kids watching my computer work. And would be a miracle at best with our temperamental computer!
But since it was a divine idea, divine help came and somehow I was able to get it all put together. It made Christmas amazing; all of the kids from young to old really liked it (such a RARE thing at our house!) and it made our Christmas day very focused around Jesus Christ and helped us make important connections.
The activity was a Clue game. I made a game board with 8 locations in or around our house where presents could be hidden. I took very close up pictures and then put a large number over them so there had to be a fair amount of deciphering in order to tell where it was. They also had to discover which wrapping paper was used to wrap the gifts and which language they would need to translate from. I made cards for each grouping (location, wrap and language) and each round they got a new set of cards to help them solve the mystery.
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| Game Board; the blue squares are doors. I didn't want to spend all of the time moving from room to room so one could go to the transport and go to any room. |
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| Clue tracker cards |
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| Location cards |
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| Gift Wrap options |
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| Language cards. The languages we used were German, French, Portuguese and Italian (yes, our children only get four gifts; 100% planned that way!). |
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Back of all the Clue cards. They say "I...commend you to seek this Jesus." Ether 12:41
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After they played a round and determined the location, wrap and language, they had to retrieve the packages. Then they had to use a decoder to find a word. The decoded word was in a different language. Each word translated into a characteristic of Christ. Each child had an assigned characteristic (that they had to determine at first) and all the presents thereafter were synonyms of their original word. So there was a fair amount of effort for each person to be able to be able to open a present. We likened that to how we receive gifts from Heavenly Father. Gifts, insights, tidbits of knowledge or direction come piece at a time and we shouldn't stop until we have reached the full blessing Heavenly Father intends for us. If they were to stop after retrieving the boxes and were unwilling to decode and translate and determine whose gift was whom's, they would have missed out on receiving the gift. It was a great illustration for that principle.
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| Each gift had a grid with a coded word to solve. |
We all were assigned scriptures to give 2 1/2 minute talks on sometime in the day. They all had to do with seeking and finding, seeking the best gifts and seeking Jesus. That turned out to be a really great thing and brought some good discussion about our focus.
For our Christmas day service project this year, we shoveled the 1 foot of snow that fell in the night for a handicapped neighbor. We had other plans, but given the snow, we decided to forego that plan. My regret about that activity: I forgot to take pictures. But as usual, getting out of our four walls on Christmas day for service really adds something important for the kids. Selfishness decreases and feelings of entitlement melt away. It is always one of the greatest blessings of the day every year.
AND....we got to talk to Caleb. He sounded great and happy and it was good to spend almost an hour talking with our favorite person in Argentina!
Hopefully more pictures later!
