A Meaningful Christmas

It's the MOST wonderful time of the year!!!

I love CHRISTMAS!! The music, the lights, the goodies.

Now that I have little one's, I feel like this time of the year comes to life. Don't you agree? 

There is something so magical (if you will) seeing a the eyes of a 4 year old grow bigger and bigger at the festive display of lights. The wonder of all things red and green and wrapped in gold. The anticipation of opening presents, stockings, hayrides, hot chocolate, and Ho Ho Ho!

The glitz and glam are enough to make this mama's heart skip a beat..but...I never want all the fluff to overshadow the gift of Jesus, the babe swaddled in the manger. I want this season to be all about JESUS!! Soooo...

I was super excited to host an advent devotional ornament exchange, A Meaningful Christmas with my girlfriends this year. This is a wonderful way to involve the whole family in preparing our hearts to celebrate Jesus' birthday!

I saw this adorable blog post last year here and knew that this was something my family would treasure for years!
When I saw they were publishing their devotional here, I knew I had to find 24 friends to participate!!!

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Making 24 ornaments is quite an undertaking, so I made sure to gather my friends early so that they had all of November to come up with an ornament idea and get crafty!

A Meaningful Christmas comes with a 24 family devotional and each day has a corresponding ornament to hang on the tree. Each friend was given the task of creating an ornament for 1 of the 24 days..and then recreating that ornament 24 times to exchange.

We had such a ball oohhing and ahhhing over everyone's creations. Seriously!! these girls got busy with their glue guns and mod podge!

God is so creative in showing His love to us. So incredibly thankful for this opportunity to spend 24 days remembering the love of my Sweet Savior and the incredible gift that He is to me...to my husband..to my family.

Our family is on Devotional day 4 and Kaitlyn is LOVING it!!!

You have to do this next year!!! E-mail ameaningfulchristmas@yahoo.com and when their website is up and running I will let you know that too!

Do you have any family advent traditions that help you keep Christ as the focus of this season? Praying your heart is captured by the awe of it all...the babe, wrapped in cloths, lying the in manger...the Savior of the World!!!