Introducing CHRISTmas

It's hard to know how much Tobey understands about real Christmas. At this age, he's just starting to get excited about gifts after birthday parties, etc. so how much will he understand about Baby Jesus? And how do we introduce it?

Tom got the idea to just focus on the handful of stories surrounding Christmas in our children's Bibles. We did the advent calendar which in future years we can tie into Jesus' birth but this year was just pre-filled with little treats (none of which he could eat) and was more of just a math lesson on counting 1-25. We got the Charlie Brown Christmas DVD, the only show brave enough to quote the Bible on primetime network TV.

One fun thing we did that I think really impressed upon Tobey's memory was going to Bethlehem A.D., on a tip from Enoch's blog. We missed going to a similar thing in Santa Clara with Cindy and Mark so when we saw there was one in Redwood City, we decided at the last minute to go (and got Drew & Hoa to come with us!).

It was a neat evening. Even the 45 min. wait around city blocks wasn't that torturous because we had the company of Drew, Hoa & Joshua, it was a mild evening and we had wandering Roman centurions to look for and entertain us. When we got in, there were so many things to look at and it was fun for us to interact with the folk from that time period. Drew also could have gotten us arrested by asking the Roman centurion if he's heard about the King of the Jews being born. Tobey seemed to really like seeing the Baby Jesus "display" with a real baby and music with angels dancing around. Although he doesn't know the spiritual or theological significance of Jesus, just hearing him say that he likes looking at Baby Jesus is a nice start to him learning and loving Jesus.

Tobey was sad to leave and when we were driving up the same highway the next evening, asked if we were going to Bethlehem. I think we may have to go visit every year if we're around. We'll also have to break it to Tobey one year that Bethlehem isn't really a half hour drive from Sunnyvale. :-) Thanks for the idea, Enoch!