{"id":6046,"date":"2017-11-09T00:02:20","date_gmt":"2017-11-09T07:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.mops.org\/?p=6046"},"modified":"2017-11-09T00:02:20","modified_gmt":"2017-11-09T07:02:20","slug":"stewarding-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/stewarding-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Stewarding The Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kids and The Christmas Story<\/em><\/p>\n

Christmas and kids were made for each other. The main attraction in the story is a baby surrounded by animals, after all. It\u2019s like God wrote this chapter with a younger audience in mind.<\/p>\n

No different than us, the children in our care, need to hear and experience the story over and over. We are meant to steward this tale, to hold it for our generation and pass it down to the next, so they can in turn pass it down someday. We know this miracle happened because there have been people of every generation since that have guarded and retold it. Now, it\u2019s our time to tell and retell so our children will absorb it into the fibers of their hearts. Here are a few ways to present these characters to our kids:<\/p>\n

It is a story! Use books. <\/strong>Illustrated picture books. Board books. Lift the flap books. It doesn\u2019t matter, just read to them; a book a night (or before a nap). Go to thrift stores and build your stock that you pack away and bring back out every year with your Christmas decorations. Go to the library and raid their seasonal collection. We all know reading to and with kids is good for them in all kinds of ways. Why not read them stories that capture their imagination around this beautiful truth we are collectively celebrating?<\/p>\n

Be tactile.<\/strong> Not every child learns by listening. Give kids tools to build and touch. Make a stable with blankets. Have Nativity sets they can play with and move around (and don\u2019t be surprised to find Joseph in the fridge or baby Jesus in the bathroom sink). Use Play-Doh to make a manger or a star in the sky. God needed to come in an incarnational way with skin and bones that could touch and hug. No surprise \u2013 many of us need to touch and feel details of the story for it to become more real.<\/p>\n

Act it out.<\/strong> Nothing helps children absorb the story more than playing it out. Whether holding figurines from a Nativity set or holding a baby doll, kids can take on the parts of the various characters. What did they say? Do? Feel? How did the others respond? As children consider what it felt like to journey on a donkey (and older kids make for great donkeys BTW) or to have an angel appear, the realities of the characters\u2019 experiences begin to sink in.<\/p>\n

Sing the story.<\/strong> Christmas carols are a beautiful tradition that capture a small part of the larger story and focus in on it. Play \u201cLittle Drummer Boy\u201d and ask kids what their gift to Jesus can be. Play \u201cAway in a Manger\u201d or \u201cSilent Night\u201d while your children lie with their eyes closed, picturing the manger and the baby. Have a dance party to \u201cJoy to the World\u201d and remember that this is a birthday celebration we hold every year for God himself. Music speaks to our hearts and the lyrics of traditional carols help put the story on our lips.<\/p>\n

Visualize the story. <\/strong>\u2018Tis the season to gather your friends and family, both young and old, furry or feather, to experience the first Christmas story as told by a donkey in Sony Pictures Animation’s, \u201cThe Star.\u201d Don\u2019t miss the opportunity this Christmas season to join in the journey and share the hope found in a savior for all.<\/p>\n

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. <\/strong>I\u2019ve heard you must hear a word seven times in a new language before you remember it. It takes 30 days to build a habit. So, no surprise, it takes repetition to remember and absorb a story. We need it and our children need it. And here\u2019s the benefit for us: when we repeat the story in all of these different ways for our kids\u2019 sakes, we are repeating it for our own hearts, too.<\/p>\n

Movie artwork: \u00a92017 Sony Pictures Animation Inc. All Rights Reserved<\/em><\/p>\n

Excerpted from <\/em>Loving My Actual Christmas: An Experiment in Relishing the Season by Alexandra Kuykendall. (c)2017. Used by permission of Baker Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group. www.bakerpublishinggroup.com<http:\/\/www.bakerpublishinggroup.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kids and The Christmas Story Christmas and kids were made for each other. The main attraction in the story is a baby surrounded by animals, after all. It\u2019s like God wrote this chapter with a younger audience in mind. No different than us, the children in our care, need to hear and experience the story […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":6047,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"Christmas","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,42],"tags":[24,383,54,55,56,286,846,1293],"class_list":["post-6046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fun","category-lifestyle","tag-christmas","tag-family-night","tag-mama","tag-mom","tag-motherhood","tag-movies","tag-sponsor","tag-the-star"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6046\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}