A merry Christmas

At the beginning of this month I really wondered: 'How would I like our children to remember our family Christmasses when they are older?'  This made me think about what we celebrate with Christmas (the birth of Jesus our Saviour) and what else is important or just nice (family time, home decorations).



We narrated the children the Christmasstories. It think it was helpful that the toddler chreche in church and preschool did the same, because they've remembered quite well what we told them about Joseph, Mary, baby Jesus, the manger, the stable, the wise men, the star and the shepherds. One time when I told the story of Joseph and Mary going on the trip to Bethlehem Boas reminded me that Joseph first had to work hard to finish his chores in the workplace (which he remembered from the creche) before he could go on a journey. And Fera suddenly said 'is born' when she heard the name Jesus. And also 'a manger'. (In Dutch, by the way ;-) ) We took them to the Christmas celebration of our church, and we enjoyed it so much! It was a beautiful service with drama, film, music, the Word, decorations and worship. And as parents we were so proud and touched by our children who played and danced together during the worship service!

Christmas morning we had a brunch at Nelleke and Jeroen's home (Jos' sister and her boyfriend) together with the rest of the Kleinleugenmors family. In the afternoon we had friends over. Geert Jan and Hilde with their girls Loïs (4) and Lucie (1,5) came and stayed till the next day. We had lots of fun. The kids had a good time together and so did the parents. We enjoyed playing together, the delicious food, the conversations and relaxing on the couch. And on Saturday, when we started to feel lazy and fat, we decided to visit and feed the ducks.