The Christmas One Where My Son is Not a Heathen...

...unlike the one where he throws the Magi to their doom in the lava.

I was signing Christmas cards and Jay was busy with Zach doing homework. Ryan seemed to want to be in the middle of something, so I gave him a stack of white paper and crayons and set him up at the table where I was signing cards. He drew a picture of a "Christmas tree with ornaments" and said it was for friend Ben. It was actually a pretty good drawing. I told him we could mail it with the Christmas card I send to Ben's mommy and daddy. [I need to ask Erin if I can borrow it to scan it for his scrapbook. Stupid me I should have thought of that before I put it in the envelope.] I went back to signing cards and Ryan went to work on his next drawing. He handed it to me and said, "This Christmas tree with ornaments is for Mom-mom and Pop-pop." He went to work on his next drawing of a Christmas tree while I labeled the previous one. Then I signed another card. He handed me his next drawing and said "This Christmas tree with ornaments is for Jason."
The cycle repeated...
"This Christmas tree with ornaments is for cousin Ben."
"This Christmas tree with ornaments is for Emily."
Then the best one...
"This Christmas tree with ornaments is for the Lord Jesus." [All together now, awwww.]
and then
"This Christmas tree with ornaments is for Mary."
"This Christmas tree with ornaments is for Joseph."
"This Christmas tree with ornaments is for the angels."

So we decided Jesus could give Mary, Joseph and the angels their drawings and we put them in Jesus's stocking. Jesus has a stocking in our house where we write things that we are going to give Jesus. Things we are going to try to do to be better followers. Zach put his first real one in this year. Up until this year he would say "I'm going to give Him my heart." As in the poem, "What can I give Him poor as I am? If I were a shepherd I'd give Him a lamb, If I were a wise man I'd do my part, What can I give Him? Give Him my heart!" In all fairness it was only one time because I didn't start this tradition until last year. I got the idea from a friend the year before when I asked about the stocking in her house with Jesus written on it.