Room

Having a 5 year old at Christmas means you get to experience Christmas through their eyes. My kindergardener's eyes are filled with, wonder and humor and of course excitement! Her joy is contagious.

She has been playing with my Nativity sets since pulling them out of their wrapping. At first I wanted to say, "wait stop, be careful, don't break them!" Thankfully I caught myself and only asked her to be gentle. I am so glad that I let go of my need for a perfect Nativity scene because watching her lost in recounting the story again and again.

Adding her favorite figurines and then even moving on to create new Nativities with other toy sets has been my favorite part of Christmas this year.

Today we as we sat on my bed and played with Skwinkies and Shopkins we retold the story of Mary and Joseph from the first time the Angel visited Mary all the way the arrival of the Wise Men. I was amazed by her attention to detail and how invested she was in the story as if each character was her close friend.
All of her imaginary play has taught me a lot this Christmas. First it reminded me that the Nativity was not all neat and perfect like the Nativity of my childhood.

Infact, it was probably a bit chaotic and messy. And while, my mom's Nativity was always picture perfect my favorite memories of it, are when we would take turns gently moving the pieces to retell the story. 

Which brings me to lesson numero dos, we are invited to enter into the story, to engage, like Kiley with the characters. I had my 5th grade students write the Christmas Story from the point of view of a random character and was intruiged by their choices to tell the story as a tree, the manger, the gold, a mouse and so on.

What I loved was how fully they engaged in the tale they have heard so many times. It made me ponder, am I engaging in the familiar story or just letting it roll off my tongue and not sink deep into my heart? Am I letting the plight of Mary and Joseph resonate? Or am I satisfied with the stoic perfection up on a shelf? 

I love this pristine display that adornes my mom's shelf. The artist captured their idea of these biblical figures with grace and beauty, but I know that these weary travelers were likely never really this calm and clean. They were likely sweaty, cold, dirty, scared, overwhelmed and then surrounded by even dirtier stinker men in from the feilds . 

So comes my final lesson from Kiley's eyes. As she begged for a stable to build her story in I was reminded that I need to make room. Make room for Jesus in my Christmas. As I watched her burst into tears tryingbto get all her Skwinkies to fit in a plastic circle to view the Baby Jesus and she just couldn't get them to all fit I was reminded to make room to invite others to celebrate the birth of a savior. Finally make room to allow my kiddo the room to loose herself in the beautiful, messy and wonderful story of the birth of her Savior.

Mary and Joseph went door to door looking for a room, a space to welcome their new baby boy into their world. Not much has changed, Jesus is still the King are you preparing room for Him in your

heart this Christmas? He is not in need of perfection, just space to fill up with His presence.