A Cake for the King

Saturday afternoon, I did the traditional, all day-untangle-the-Christmas-lights-and-hang-them-on-the-house project. Oh joy!! Since I am highly skilled in this area (and basically all home improvement related work for that matter), you have no idea how much fun this annual event is...trust me! After hours of finding defective bulbs, searching for replacements, and standing on ladders, I was starting to re-think how we celebrate this entire season. Is Christmas here again already? Seems like we were doing this just last month!

Sunday night I brought both Alexa and Mikaela to the HPC kids Christmas play--which was absolutely fantastic...thank you Mrs. Sherrie May and the entire team!! The kids did a wonderful job of showing us the primary purpose of Christmas.

On the way home, I used that experience to ask Mikaela (our 4 year old) questions about why we celebrate. In spite of the hype all around us concerning Santa Claus, reindeer, trees, presents, and snow (which would be awesome this year), she was quick to tell me about baby Jesus...and baby Moses. After affirming the importance of baby Moses and his little basket floating down the river, I made sure she knew that Christmas was all about Christ--His birth and our hope in Him. "Daddy," she said, "if it's Jesus' birthday, then shouldn't we make Him a birthday cake?" How could I argue with that? We celebrate all of our birthdays with cake, why couldn't we celebrate His with cake too!!

After stopping by Wal-Mart to pick up some chocolate icing--since Mikaela and I agree that chocolate is Jesus' favorite flavor--we spent the rest of the night baking a cake for our King. We made a royal mess of things in the kitchen but shared a beautiful moment together as a family. I never knew that celebrating the Savior could be so delicious!! With only 19 shopping days left until Christmas, do something different this year. Talk to your children. Get creative. Make a mess of things. But be sure to tell them the story of how Heaven came down to earth and kissed us all!