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Whose Birthday? BONUS Items

BONUS ITEMS - Worthy items not included in the print edition

Twelve Days of Christmas Activity Envelopes

(The complete set of envelopes follows.)

See article under FUN ACTIVITIES.

December 25 � The Birth of Jesus

We send our blessings to you and share in the happiness of Christmas � that �God humbled himself to share in our humanity�. As a gift to you (because we know you don�t need more STUFF), we put together some activities for your family to do for each of the 12 Days of Christmas. Don�t worry. They�re simple and they can travel with you!

We often forget that Christmas celebrations begin on December 25 and continue until January 6 � the Epiphany (when the kings visited Jesus) � hence, the meaning of the 12 Days of Christmas (actually starting on Dec. 26). So, if your tree will last, don�t take it down, keep out your nativity, and let the house lights burn bright for now the light of the world is alive and well and dispelling the darkness.

God bless you and thank you for being part of our lives this year!

Love, The Howards

December 26 � The 1st Day of Christmas

To show the travels of the Kings and the shepherds, move them far away from the nativity. Have a family member decide where to put them for the day. Some families choose to hide them and whoever finds them puts them in another spot. You choose what works for you, but put them far enough away from the nativity that they can move a little closer for each of the 12 days. If you�re visiting a relative�s house, be sure to ask them if you can use their nativity or bring yours and have them share in the fun.

Talking point: Looking back over Christmas Day have each family member share their most memorable or special moment. Consider keeping these memories in a Christmas journal you write in each year.

December 27 � The 2nd Day of Christmas

Move the 3 Kings and the shepherds/sheep closer to the nativity today.

I wanted 2 . . . Do something today that you had on your list of things you wanted to do prior to Christmas, but didn�t get around to doing � sew, bake, work on the photo album, write a personal note, etc. What was it that you really wanted to do? Spend some time focusing on that activity today.

December 28 � The 3rd Day of Christmas

Move the 3 Kings and the shepherds/sheep closer to the nativity today.

Three is the Magic Number! Don�t forget to celebrate thankfulness this season! Isn�t that part of Christmas anyway - being thankful that God cared enough about us to send us Jesus? Have each family member name 3 things they are thankful for today.

December 29 � The 4th Day of Christmas

Move the 3 Kings and the shepherds/sheep closer to the nativity today.

Just 4 You! Often we are our own worst critics. We tell ourselves so many negative things. Be honest with yourself today and think about 4 gifts you feel God has given you or 4 things that you do really well. Share out loud or not, but at least write them down so you can read them again when you�re feeling sad or discouraged. Remember, God says, �You are mine!�

December 30 � The 5th Day of Christmas

Move the 3 Kings and the shepherds/sheep closer to the nativity today.

High 5! Give a High 5 along with a thank you to each person who does something nice for you today. Try to give out at least 5 or challenge yourself to give out 5 for each person in your family!!

December 31 � The 6th Day of Christmas

Move the 3 Kings and the shepherds/sheep closer to the nativity today.

Tomorrow starts another year. With new beginnings come new opportunities. Instead of a making a resolution that will be hard to keep, start thinking about a gift of yourself that you can give to Jesus for the new year � more patience for a family member, forgiveness, building a relationship that�s been difficult, spreading cheer instead of anger, saying my prayers at night, etc.

While deciding what to do, spend some time reflecting on the celebrations and hardships of the past year - what helped you through them, what you learned, or what opportunities came out of your situations.

On Jan. 6th you�ll write down what you chose as the gift to give to Jesus for the next year. Take some time to think about it.

January 1 � The 7th Day of Christmas

Move the 3 Kings and the shepherds/sheep closer to the nativity today.

Tomorrow many of you must return to school or work or simply re-enter the daily routine. Don�t forget, there are still 5 more days to celebrate Christmas! Have fun tonight by playing this game to bring back memories of your holiday break: Word by Word invented by Peggy Kaye.

Here�s how it works:
Each person takes a turn rolling a die. Add that many words to the story. For instance a 3 might result in �On Christmas morning . . .� The next person rolls the die and adds to the story. You can be silly if you want to. Don�t have a die? Put small pieces of paper in a hat bowl and draw from there.

January 2 � The 8th Day of Christmas

Move the 3 Kings and the shepherds/sheep closer to the nativity today.

Return 2 Work/School/Routine?! Don�t fret! It�s the 8th Day of Christmas and you�re still celebrating. Break out the sparkling cider or grape juice! At dinner tonight, share your feelings about how your return to work/school/routine went today. Talk about how you can keep the spirit of Christmas alive for 4 more days.

January 3 � The 9th Day of Christmas

Move the 3 Kings and the shepherds/sheep closer to the nativity today.

On the 9th Day of Christmas my true love gave to me 9 Ladies Dancing . . . Have you turned off the Christmas music? Most radio stations have, but Christmas is not over. Pull out the Christmas music, crank it up, and dance around the house!!

January 4 � The 10th Day of Christmas

Move the 3 Kings and the shepherds/sheep closer to the nativity today.

Look through the newspaper and see if there is any mention of Christmas still being celebrated. Discuss why you think this is? What news dominates the paper today?

Consider attending an Epiphany celebration (when the 3 Kings visit Jesus and presented their gifts). There�s one at _____ Church on [day/date] at [time]. It�s designed to be a family and community celebration! If you�re interested call the office [number] or [name/phone] for details. What�s going on in your area?

January 5 � The 11th Day of Christmas

Move the 3 Kings and the shepherds/sheep closer to the nativity today.

Table talk: What�s the talk around the office, at school, or around town today? Do you feel you measure up? Is that a good or bad thing? Why? Have each family member share.

January 6 � The 12th Day of Christmas

Put the 3 Kings and the shepherds/sheep at the nativity today.

Wow! It�s been great celebrating Christmas with you. Tonight we�ll be at the Epiphany celebration at church presenting the gifts we�ll give to Jesus this year written on individual pieces of paper. I�m excited. Are you?

If you don�t have a celebration to go to, do one at home. Write your gift on paper and present it at your home nativity. Then carry a lighted candle into each room of your house (lights off if you can) and ask Jesus to be with you in that room this year.

Talking point: Today, Mary and Joseph share Jesus with us. Parents, talk about how you felt the first time you shared your newborn children with the outside world of extended family and friends. Don�t have children? Share your feeling about an exciting event in your life that you decided to tell others. What do you remember about that day?

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More from Anne Basye's Journal

By Anne Basye

Wigilia

Another year, another Christmas Eve at my former in-laws, where we celebrate Wigilia, the Polish version of Christmas Eve.

The best part of the Wigilia is at the beginning, when we exchange oplanteks, delicate oblong wafers imprinted with an image of the Virgin and Child. Everyone pairs off and holds out their oplateks to each other. As I give the other person wishes for the coming year � wishes for good health, discernment, help in a tough time � I break off pieces of the wafer. Then the other person makes wishes for me, and breaks pieces from my wafer.

It�s deep and emotional. Tears flow as good times are remembered or losses are reviewed. The losses are mounting: my sister-in-law�s husband died in 201 of a brain tumor at 50; Alex�s grandma Dell died in January 2004 of breast cancer; and my sister-in-law Barb�s husband Bill, just 52, died of lung and brain cancer the day after Thanksgiving.

The awkwardness of my position as ex-daughter-in-law, ex-sister-in-law melts away during this ritual. I�m blessed to be there, looking into the eyes of my ex-but-still-in-laws and blessing them for the year to come.

December 26

Most of my presents came from the neighborhood�I like shopping locally�and or come from my church or my job. For my sister�s boys, Alex and I pass along a toy that�s in good shape. They have so much already, and they�re still young enough to be impressed by what Alex owned, being in the admiring-big-cousin-Alex stage. We�ve passed along a beautiful mancala set, some easy reader books, and the all-time favorite, old sheets of press type left over from the days when desktop publishing programs were an impossible dream. Julian, Jonathan and John�s daughter Lily can rub it onto paper to make signs or onto blank books to make stories. They love the stuff. It�s gone now, though; this year we distributed the final inventory.

What Would Jesus Do?

For a couple of summers, Alex attended art camps that included daily read-aloud sessions that used myths from different cultures. The gods of the Hindu myths were much more exciting than what he learned in Sunday school. �Why is Jesus so boring?� he asked when he was about 8. �All he ever did was throw around some tables at the temple.�

Exploring that a little, we agreed that the significance of those turned-over tables was deep. Now I wonder how Jesus would regard the tables of merchandise in a mall. Would he recognize the mall as a temple of sorts�a temple that we patronize more faithfully than any church or synagogue? Would he turn some tables over?

Excerpts from �Sustaining Simplicity: A Journal� available from Alternatives. �2007 ELCA Hunger Program. Used by permission.

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Nicholas and the Tax Collectors

by Carl H. Billings, Jr.

Synopsis: This soliloquy features Nicholas, a bishop of the early Church, who later became known as St. Nicholas, the precursor for �Santa Claus,� as he prays through a personal decision point in his life: How will this church leader use his personal and organizational wealth? Although the play is suitable for any time of the year, it may be especially poignant around December 6th, the observance of St. Nicholas Day when audience members may themselves be confronting similar questions regarding their own wealth.

Nicholas: I know what I ream of doing and that is to use this money that has been given back to the Church to build a wonderful sanctuary to the glory of Your name. It would stand on a cliff overlooking the sea. The church would be of such size and greatness that sailors far out to sea would be able to see it. The cathedral would become a landmark by which to identify our beautiful city of Myra.

There are other ways to use this money. There are hurting people in the world: people suffering from persecution, and from the civil war. People like Julian, the tax collector. It was he who brought you this first sack of gold coins as part of the money being returned to the Church. How ironic that a former tax collector now finds himself in poverty. For good reason: most of his wealth was looted from the Church. Sadly, however, it is his three daughters of marrying age who will suffer the most. It he is not able to gather together enough money for a dowry for each of them, he will be forced, by the perverse customs of the age, to sell them into slavery or a life of prostitution.

Help me, Lord, to be a good servant. I will never be famous, but help me to be faithful. I will write a note and leave it unsigned. Julian will never know where it came from. Even thinking about this decision fives me joy! My mind is suddenly flooded with many ways I can use the wealth of the church. The sailors that frequent our city have so many needs. . . And our children � there is so much that the church can do for them.

Thank you, Lord. You used one tax collector � Matthew � to show me how to serve another tax collector and all who are around me.

Narrator: Tradition holds that Bishop Nicholas continued his generous ways throughout his life. His legendary generosity to people who were poor and defenseless became the basis for the character whom today we call Santa Claus. As for Nicholas imagined lack of fame: Throughout the world, ore churches are named after Saint Nicholas than any other saint or person.

Excerpt from Hunger & Hope: Dramas about Poverty, Hunger & Mission available from Alternatives. Visit www.elca.org/hunger/resources/hungerdramas � 2006 ELCA Hunger Program. Used by permission.

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Who Is Christmas for, Anyway?

by Helen Beazley

Somehow, as Christmas approaches I once again falsely believe that Christmas is for my children and my family, who can revel in the magic of tinsel and fairy lights, and presents, and singing, and the story of the Christ child, and of course more presents.

But as I sit with my fellow worshippers on the first Sunday of Advent, I learn again whom Christmas is really for. I attend a church in Brisbane, Australia, that welcomes everyone. Our golden rule is that the only people excluded are people who would exclude others.

At this service we remember the pregnant teenager, Mary, nearly abandoned by her fianc�, most probably the subject of gossip and ridicule. Our Mary connects to the women in our congregation who are �outsider� mums, many of whom because of psychiatric or intellectual disabilities, or for some other reason, have had their children taken away. And we remember Jesus, who many would have regarded as illegitimate, whose lineage includes kings and prostitutes, who is homeless on the night of his birth, who Herod wants to kill, and who becomes a refugee. Our Jesus gives solace to those of us who have had run-ins with the law, who have never �belonged� to society, who have been homeless and for whom stability is a boarding house. And then there are the religious strangers (Iraqis perhaps?) who are guided to Jesus, and the men of little social standing whom the angels entrust with God�s message of peace and goodwill.

And what about the �society insiders� among us � our representatives have only minor parts to play in this drama � like the generous innkeeper. Generous innkeeper? Scripture makes no mention of an innkeeper, only mentioning that there was �no room at the inn.� Perhaps the author is assuming the innkeeper was generous in offering a stable or cave, but that is what some have read into it � it�s not scripturally based, however.

And Christmas becomes mine and my family�s in all its wonder again, when I step aside and return it to my friends who can connect most thoroughly and hopefully to the story of the first Christmas.

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Can Christmas Cost Too Much?

by Helen Beazley

Matthew 1: 18- 2: 23

God of love and joy and peace:

We describe you this way at Christmas time because of the sights and sounds around us. Everywhere there are reminders of shepherds who heard angelic words of peace, and wise men who loved a baby for what he would become, and a young mother who knew that now she had a special significance. You shared your best with us, and now we�re ready to spend for those who are best for us.

But Joseph seems to have spent more than he received. He risked his reputation to marry a woman who was already pregnant. He stood in the background while shepherds praised his wife and a son whom he adopted. Wise men knelt before Jesus and Mary. Who bowed to Joseph, the descendent of King David?

Dear God, please don�t give us that kind of Christmas. We don�t want to be ignored or taken for granted. Let someone�s eyes be bright when they give us a present, and someone fills the empty chair of the person who used to make this season worthwhile. Doesn�t make any sense to me�

May the pleasure of your presence fill any vacant space in our memory. May the promises of faith bring patience and loyalty in our family celebrations. Remember us as you remembered Joseph.

Amen.

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O Advent Morn

(Sung to the tune of �O Holy Night�)

O Advent morn, the waning moon is smiling;
Is this the dawn of the last age of war?
As sparrow song in humble chirping greets us,
We kneel to praise you, great Creator Spirit.
Thanks for this day. Please hear our prayer for peace,
O God, beyond the fading morning star.

Marjorie Gray

O Troubled Town of Washington


(Sung to the tune of �O Little Town of Bethlehem�)

O Troubled Town of Washington,
How fragile are your dreams.
Beneath your bright and sleepless watch
Lurk selfish, wasteful schemes.
Yet down your tired streets still burns
The everlasting fire
From hearts that dare to love
By Jesus� holy peace inspired.

Marjorie Gray

Holy Evening

Wanda, weary of shopping,
drops her keys, stays
home with family.
Husband Walter turns TV off,
drops his papers, calls
Grandma and the kids,
who pry themselves from computer,
refrigerator and Harry Potter
to enter the warm dark room.
The five form a living wreath
of open faces, lit by
Advent candle flames.
Old faithful hallelujah geysers
rise, carols hark the herald,
dirges become dances, then
lullabies as long black night
hosts ice moon in far-flung
glitter of her star-flakes,
old and young transformed to new,
forever ever evergreen,
skirting the godman.

Marjorie Gray

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A Simple Life

Sung to Angels From the Realms of Glory

by Ric Valentine

All we need
In these days of selfish want-
In these times of selfish greed,
In this world of evil, envy
This be our ever faithful creed:
Christ Our Saviour
God, Almighty,
Bread of heav'n our Holy Need

More than silver, more than gold-
More than trophies which we hold,
Is your goodness, grace & mercy
Your unbounding Love untold;
Now we praise you
Now we praise You!
For your boundless Love untold.

Take away our worldly treasures
All our earthly pleasures too,
We are blest by God our maker
Christ, our Saviour - ever true;
Now we worship
Glorify -
Father, Son, forever true.

For the sunrise at the dawning
Blooming flowers along the way,
For the sunset's benediction
At the closing of the day
Alleluia!
Alleluia!
See His (God's) wonders day by day.

Praise Him for our endless blessings,
For our friends we meet each day,
For our families here on earth -
For our loved ones now we pray!
Ever lead them
Ever guide them
on their homeward, heav'nward way.

Tune: Henry Smart Angels from the realms of Glory
Text copyright Sept 05 Richard H Valentine

PS
Yet when I go thru Forbes Magazine
a-glancin'
Readin' about their yachts, high livin',
mansions,
Is it such a terrible sin
To be lavisholy acashin'?
(ha!)

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Making the Holidays Your Own

by Meg Cox

Sometimes when I lecture, I take along my family�s Christmas stockings to illustrate how family traditions have changed in one generation. When I grew up, we had four red felt stockings made by my mother, one for each of four children.

At my house, there is only one kid but six stockings hang above the fireplace. These stockings are for my husband, myself, our son, my stepdaughter, her husband, and my husband�s ex-wife.

Welcome to Christmas in the 21st century!

There may be a radical difference in what constitutes a family today, but I think what is remarkable is how much is unchanged. I loved my childhood stocking ritual and I follow it exactly: on Christmas Eve, while my son is asleep, I fill his stocking and leave it propped against his bedroom door. He�s allowed to wake up early and open the contents in bed.

How well I remember the joy of finding that bulging red stocking outside my door, and dumping the treats all over my bed! Even though the stocking always included an orange in the toe and a box of thank-you notes, there were always candies and surprises. It was like having a little private celebration before the loud family celebration downstairs next to the tree.

Not only do I follow my mom�s ritual, when I went to make my family�s stockings, I literally traced around hers and cut the same size and shape. My one tiny improvement: in my childhood, all our stockings were decorated the same, with a green felt tree in the center decorated with sequins, surrounded by white felt stars. Our names were written in gold cording above the tree. I decided to make each stocking slightly different, by putting different presents under the tree. I hunted for cute themed buttons, specific to each person, that represent their passions. My son�s stocking has an airplane button and a tiny bear sewed under the tree.

I think when people get stressed out about big holidays it�s partly because they think they�re required to create elaborate traditions that are completely original. Wrong! Just as I kept my mother�s tradition and tweaked the actual stockings only slightly, it takes only modest tinkering to personalize the holidays.

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A Christmas Prayer Service

by Catherine Furlani

While the celebration of Christmas is usually a joy-filled occasion in family life, it can easily turn into a sad time when the family has suffered the loss of a loved one. This is particularly true when celebrating Christmas for the first time after the death of a love one who has always been a part of a family�s Christmas festivities.

When family members gather to celebrate Christmas following the death of a loved one a void is felt by all those gathered. Everyone is usually thinking of the family member who is gone and is aware of that person�s absence, however, all too often no one speaks of this absence. The following Christmas prayer service is designed for the purpose of allowing a way for the family to acknowledge the physical absence of their loved one, and for celebrating all that they share with one another.

Use the Advent Wreath and four white candles.

We gather this Christmas to remember and celebrate the birth of Jesus, Our Lord and Savior.

As we light this first candle, we remember the life that God has given each of us, and the life that we share with one another. We take a moment to remember those we have loved in this life who are no longer here (name of the deceased may be voiced aloud).

As we light this second candle, we recall the tears and joy that Mary and Joseph experienced at the birth of Jesus; and we remember the tears and laughter that is part of our lives. May we know that Jesus is with us in the changing moments of our lives, wiping away our tears and sharing our joy.

As we light this third candle, we remember that Jesus came to bring forgiveness and reconciliation into the human family. May our hearts be open to receiving Jesus' healing in our lives; becoming instruments of forgiveness and comfort to one another.

As we light this fourth candle. We remember God's unending love for us. We remember that God loved the world so much that in the fullness of time God became with us in the person of Jesus, the Christ. We remember that our God has shared our human life so that we may come to know and share in God's Divine Life now and forever.

We thank you, Lord God, for the life we share, for the love which binds us together and our loved one(s) present to us always. Amen.

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Page updated 11 Sept. 2013

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