Homemade Christmas

I had a little chat with my dear friend Laura recently, and she said they were doing a “Homemade Christmas” this year. It got me thinking, but not too much. Then the Occupy Wall Street insanity started, culminating with my foray into the Black Friday shopping madness for a birthday gift.

I think Laura planted a seed, OWS watered it and Black Friday fertilized it; but I finished reading a book called "Michael O'Halloran" by one of my favorite author's, Gene Stratton-Porter, recently and it brought to fruition the fruit from the tree of hominess.

One of the characters, Junior, is a farm boy who wants to go to the city to find work; it’s about 1905-ish. In doing so, he gets his clock cleaned by the local thuggery; he’s a newcomer to the city, not at all streetwise, and it shows.
He finally makes it home, repentant, but worried; will his father say "I told you so"? Instead, the father wisely understands it's partly his own fault. He has often taken his children into the city for entertainments, the city was "where it was at" so to speak, and so what could he expect but that his children would seek outside entertainment; would seek the city for fulfillment.

It got me thinking about how I've raised my children and what I may still have time to correct. "The city", is Babylon, and I don't want them to seek riches there; I don’t want them to look “further than their own back yard”, as Dorothy says, in looking for something better. I want them to seek riches at home, in the depths of their hearts; the spark of love and affection that our Heavenly Father put there.
There is enough creativity and love in our family, to be able to shun most of the worldly things and show the others how much we love them.

We bought a digital projector several years ago, so that the kids would want to be entertained at home, instead of the theater, and for the most part it’s worked. We wanted them to want to be together, to enjoy each other’s company, and OUR company; to have their friends here instead of “there”. I can make caramel popcorn and we’ll play games or watch a movie with friends and/or family; truly making our home the center of our children’s lives.

It’s my belief that this new Christmas tradition is the next step in this “home awakening” we’ve been trying to instill; it will be a little rocky in the beginning, I imagine; someone will not feel creative, or not enjoy crafting or what have you. However I can see no better way to cement the bonds of family than to make sacrifices for each other at the time when we celebrate the Sacrifice of our Heavenly Father, in the gift of his Son to us.

I urge you to think about “Junior”, and his father; to work toward a Christmas that doesn’t require the very thing the Grinch Who Stole Christmas was irritated about in the first place.

Merry Christmas!