Ella has a birthday obsession. She loves her birthday, your birthday, and all birthday’s in between. When she reads “If You Give a Pig a Party,” Pig is celebrating her birthday. If a show involves a birthday, she’s in! In fact, when she “reads” books and creates her own story lines, they usually have a birthday party.
Now that the Halloween hoopla is over and the candy inhaled, I’ve started looking toward Christmas. (I’m sure the carols playing in the grocery store helped). I like Ella’s 3 year-old Birthday enthusiasm. Right now, it’s really not commercial. She isn’t obsessing over a certain toy (she doesn’t watch commercials) and presents are cool, but I’m not sure she thinks much about them. Birthdays are celebration – a delicious cake, balloons, and spending time with friends. With Santa looming in our future, I decided to try and preempt him a bit by focusing on Christmas as Jesus’ birthday.
Reba McEntire has a Happy Birthday Jesus song on one of her Christmas albums that I’ve always thought was a bit cheesy. I actually ran my Birthday idea by my hubby last night and he looked a bit dubious. But Christmas is a celebration of the most important birth of all time. I’m still trying to figure out how to balance the birthday aspect with the appropriate reverence, but I’m excited about the possibilities.
My sister is going to mail me an advent calendar that helps focus on the story of Christ. It has scriptures and activities to do each day. I am planning on using this and simply introducing it as a birthday countdown, a concept Ella loves. We’ve already talked a bit about Jesus’ birthday and she is excited. I’ll share my ideas and experiences a bit more as we look forward to Christmas 2009!
Leave a Reply