A Sneak Peek into Family Night #5: Requires Some Advanced Planning

The fifth and final family night is my absolute favorite. I wish I could say the same for the kids, but their favorite is clearly the fourth family night.  It is just hard to compete with a party when you are talking about 6 and 7 year old kiddos.  It is my prayer that their perspective will shift as they grow and mature.

I will be posting Family Night #5 in its entirety later, but I just wanted to highlight the following aspects of the evening as they do require some advanced thought and consideration.

Although, we would love to have our fifth family night on Christmas Eve, we have ours the last night we are at home together with just our immediate family.  After we have finished with the lesson and songs, we talk about how people and God's Word are really the only things that matter in this world.  Everything else will pass away, but God's Word and people's souls will live forever.  Although it will be exciting to receive gifts over the coming days, not one of these presents or toys will bring lasting joy.  In fact, many will quickly be forgotten.  Only God, through the gift of His Son, brings eternal joy.

Then, we give each child a "spiritual" gift.  This gift is intended to help them remember the permanent nature of God's Word.  Over the years, we have given Grace Christian themed bracelets, a necklace with a cross and a devotional book.  Sam has received a CD with Bible stories that he could listen to during rest time when he was little, a Bible for Little Boys and a Daddy and Son devotional book. 

This year, we are choosing scripture verses that we think will be encouraging to each child over the coming year.   I am going to order a wall sticker with their verse for each of their rooms from ScriptureArt. Tom and I are also going to write letters to each child that we will read aloud to them that evening. These letters will talk about the various characteristics that we have seen in them this Christmas season and that we want to encourage and celebrate.  I expect that these letters will become a permanent and cherished tradition in our family.