An Extra Stocking

Christmas is my most favorite time of the year.

It's even more magical with children :)
With all of the exciting things going on it's really important to us to keep Christ at the center of our Christmas.

We want our son to remember the true meaning of Christmas.

When I was growing up, every year at the beginning of December my parents would take my doll's cradle and get some hay. Throughout the month of December we would do acts of service for each other, and each time we did we would put a piece of hay in the cradle.

On Christmas Eve we would place a doll (representing the baby Jesus), in the cradle with all of the hay.

The hay was symbolic of us giving back to the Savior by serving others.

Last Christmas I decided I wanted to start a new tradition, I liked what my parents had done for us, but I didn't have access to any hay.

My son had just turned 4 at the time and on the first Monday in December we had a Family Home Evening where I explained to him that Christmas is when we celebrate Christ's birth. The Wise Men took gifts of specific importance to the baby Jesus because they knew who He was. I then told my son we needed to give a gift to Him as well.

I then told my son that when Jesus was on the Earth he told the people to love one another. So a gift to we could give to Him was to be kind to one another, love one another, and serve one another.
I wanted to somehow keep track or our service to one another, so this idea was born.

For the stocking I didn't use a pattern or anything. I just cut out two 'sock shapes' and glued them together around the edges. I then cut out the blue piece and glued it across the front, and lastly I took a small red scrap piece, folded it over for the loop, and glued it on the top corner.
We hung it next to our stockings.

Each day for the rest of the month every time my son would help by doing a chore, helped when we didn't ask, or was kind to another kid at the park, etc. we would write down what he did on a piece of paper and put it in the stocking.

On Christmas Eve we read the story of Jesus' birth. We then pulled out all of the pieces of paper from the stocking and read all of the things my son had done throughout the month. 

I loved how well it went, and I decided to do this activity again this year.

So last night we had Family Home Evening and talked again about the Savior's birth and how we want to give back, and serve, and love one another, and we hung up the stocking where it will be until Christmas Eve.