purposeful season & light the world!

My goodness, I'm not sure where the year has gone, but somehow it has, and we are now on December first already! I love Christmas time so very much. I love to focus on the Savior and on the real stuff. The magic of the season is so fun too--especially with little ones in the house. I want to make sure they bask in the wonder of the beautiful lights and gorgeous ornaments, but mostly I hope that they will feel the joy that comes from knowing who Jesus Christ is and why we celebrate this special time of year.  

How sweet are they?! We did school in the afternoon the morning is snowed so we could play in the snow before it melted! 

One of the things I've found that I absolutely love begins today with a worldwide day of service. My church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) has a beautiful 25 day advent with daily advent with daily acts of service to help each of us and our families create beautiful opportunities to focus on the true purpose of the season. The advent and prompts are for everybody--not just for church memebers. The daily prompt to reach out and become a little more like the Savior gets me a little teary-eyed when I read and think about it. You can find the link  HERE.  I love it because it doesn't require anything fancy, and it doesn't require you to buy anything at all or decorate more or anything like that. My friends over at The Small Seed have even created a beautiful download with a tree that makes a great visual for serving--especially with children around! I hopefully will get around to printing it off. But even if I don't, we are still going to do the simple acts of service as we try to focus on Christ and try to become a little more like Him this season. Here's a video illustrating the initiative: