Forty-second Passage

Last week for Family Home Evening, we talked about Chistmas, and the nativity and stuff, and then we talked about how we can give Jesus gifts by serving others. We made a manger out of construction paper, and cut out little strips of yellow paper, then talked about how we can put a piece of hay in the manger every time we do an act of service. The idea is that on Christmas we will put a baby Jesus in the manger, and hopefully he will have a soft bed to lay in, filled with lots of hay.

Here's the manger.





The first night, the boys were anxiously going about the house looking for acts of service to perform, and adding hay to the manger. It was great. The next day they had no interest in doing service. But that has changed, and they have found a nice place in between the two extremes. It's funny to hear them trying to find lazy ways to serve though. Like, putting the dishes away, for instance. That is always their job. Owen does the silverware, and William and Morgan take turns either standing on a chair and putting dishes in a cupboard, or handing the dishes from the dishwasher to the brother on the chair.
They wanted to put hay in the bed, so they came up with an idea. William would do a service for Owen by putting away the silverware, Morgan would take William's turn on the chair, thereby serving William, and Owen could serve Morgan by taking Williams place. We had to explain to them that an exchange of chores is different from service.
But they've been pretty good about it, really. They often make my bed for me, so it looks like this. :)


It makes me happy when the boys are excited about serving their family members.