Day 15- Five brought another book back from the North Pole. We talked about joy again and how God loves it when we are happy. We can make Him happy by glorifying Him in all that we do!
Day 16- Our chiropractor office is doing a Salvation Army Angel Tree. Five brought us an angel to bless, and he even has the same name as E! We are taking the gift to our chiropractor office today and we are talking about being a blessing to others.
Day 17- Today, Five wants us to make cookies to give our mailman! Our mailman serves us by bringing us our mail everyday. We can serve him and bless him with cookies! (Five is once again sitting on top of a snowman’s head, which just cracks E up!)
Day 18- Matthew 2:9-12 – We talked about the star in the sky that led the wise men to Jesus. We visited our manger and talked about each figure and who they were. I’m pretty sure that was E’s favorite day with Five. He really loved talking about the manger scene!
Later in the day, we received a very shocking phone call that my husband’s father had passed away unexpectedly in his sleep (there is a post about my father in law in the making that I will share in the near future). We were (and still are) very shocked, stunned and our hearts are broken. We know there is healing in Christ and we are so thankful for that. I tried to keep up with the elf to try to have some normalcy for our little boy, but we were traveling daily, spending 3+ hours in the car and Five kind of fell to the wayside as we grieved. Luckily, my little man is little enough that I simply told him Five liked the spot he was in, and E was good with that.
Day 19-25: I only got 2 pictures between the chaos of our family’s tragedy, preparing for Christmas and then traveling to St Louis for Christmas. This picture of the elf is quite funny. When we arrived at my parent’s house, my mom had this snowman for E waiting in his bed. E did not like him and told Mawmaw that the snowman was scary!! We tried for a few days to get E to like the snowman, but it just wasn’t happening. One morning, Five was sitting with the snowman. We talked about a bible verse we learned at VBS last summer (and a verse we use often): Psalm 118:6- The Lord is with me. I will not be afraid. We talked about how when we are scared, we can look to God because He is with us, and since He is with us, we do not need to be afraid. Surprisingly, after this discussion, E was no longer afraid of the snowman! Way to go, Five!
On Christmas Day, Five was sitting at the manger. We were planning to put wire in his arms and legs so that he could be praying at the manger, but we didn’t get to that. Next year! We talked about how Christmas day is the day we celebrate Jesus being born. We talked about how He is our King, our Savior, and how He came to take the darkness out of our hearts.
Five is actually still hanging out. His last day with us will be New Year’s Eve. We thought we better extend Five’s stay since our past week and half has been crazy. On New Year’s Day, Five will be heading back to the North Pole to help Santa begin preparing for next year.
We plan to explain that to E on New Year’s Eve, and we are going to tell him that we can look forward to next Christmas when Five will return to help us learn more about Jesus during the Christmas season 🙂
We have so enjoyed doing Elf on the Shelf Jesus Style!! I hope that these ideas have blessed you and that you had a very merry Christmas!!!
Thank you for this inspiration! Our boys recently received Elf on the Shelf from a friend of ours. I have never liked the idea of the mischievous little elf, since it contradicts the way we want to raise our little gentlemen! I vowed never to buy one! But, since we were gifted one, I don’t want to leave it to waste! I figured it would be perfect to remind our kiddos of the REASON that we celebrate, that all to often becomes secondary! I needed some help with the delivery, and thanks to you, I am inspired!!!
I didn’t like the idea of the mischievous elf nor did I like the idea of using a “scare tactic” to get my kid to listen! I came up with the Elf on the Shelf Jesus Style because I wanted to use it as a tool to teach about Jesus! God has truely blessed my family through this. They are His words. Not mine!
I wanted to let you know I received my book. Have not had a chance to read it yet but after everything settles down from the holidays I intend to make several changes in my life and one is getting closer to my Lord. Thank you!!
Awesome!!! I pray it blesses you! I know it will!
I have truly been blessed with how Five has showed different ways to teach little ones about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And I appreciate you allowing us into your world to see this. You are a blessing as well and I thank you.
Thank you so much!
Stephanie recently posted…Elf on the Shelf Jesus Style Week 3 Recap