Why We Give Gifts At Christmas FHE

For the month of December, our Family Home Evening lessons will be focused on Christ.
The older kids know Christmas is about celebrating the birth of our Savior and not just getting presents, but I'm not sure the Babes understands.  The other day she said at Christmas she'll say Happy Birthday Santa.

I found this great talk from FHE Lessons  on why we give gifts at Christmas.  You can read the whole thing HERE.

Our Family Home Evenings have to be short, otherwise the Babes runs off to play and the Spencinator just can't control himself any longer.  So we'll be reading a portion of the talk each week and watching a video to reinforce the message.

Last week we read about the First Gift of Christmas which was God's gift of his Son to us.
We also read about the gifts from the Wise Men and what the Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh represent.

Then I could see the kids were getting antsy so I asked them to think about what gift they could give the Savior and next week we'll talk about that.  Then we watched this cute video, you can click HERE to watch it, it's less than 4 minutes and my kids loved the ending.

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Think Good Thoughts (FHE)

Last week for Family Home Evening we had a very simple lesson about thinking good thoughts.  Most of my lessons for FHE are short and simple.  With a toddler, I can't do anything too lengthy, and with a son with Asperger's I like to make accommodations for him since he doesn't like making crafts or playing games (competition is a real challenge for him).  So working together for a common goal and letting the girls do the crafty part at the end of our lessons has worked out good.  

Anyway, back to last weeks lesson.  I got the idea from HERE.  It's an eight week series of lessons to teach children how to live the Gospel from head to toe.  It's based on the song Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes (a great song for toddlers).   We started with the first lesson that focuses on the head, specifically thinking good thoughts.  I plan to go through all the lessons but not in a row since we'll do some special Thanksgiving and Christmas FHE's in between.

We started off by singing the song  Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.

"Head and shoulders, knees and toes
Knees and toes, knees and toes
Head and shoulders, knees and toes
Eyes, ears, mouth and nose."

Then we talked about what's in our head.  My son quickly answered, "thoughts".  So we talked about how we should think about Heavenly Father and Jesus every day. We should think about what they want us to do. We should try to have good thoughts in our heads and when a bad thought comes in, to throw it away.

I read the scripture from Alma 37:36, which states:

"Yea, and cry unto God for all thy support; yea, let all thy doings be unto the Lord, and whithersoever thou goest let it be in the Lord; yea, let all thy thoughts be directed unto the Lord; yea, let the affections of thy heart be placed upon the Lord forever. "

For the activity, I had prepared a jar with a head taped onto it to represent our head.
I had 10 strips of paper with thoughts (good and bad) on them.
The kids took turns picking a slip of paper and reading it.  We decided if it was a good thought, something that we wanted in our head, then we put it into the jar.  If it was a bad thought we threw it aside.  The kids had fun with the throwing part.   This simple activity got everyone involved and having fun.

As for a treat afterwards, we made heads out of a scoop of ice cream, a cone for a hat and some chocolate chip eyes.  The kids added some gel icing to make a mouth and to decorate the hat.

If you liked this FHE idea, check out some of my other Family Home Evening ideas:
Controlling Anger - Nails in the Fence 
Put on the Armor of God 

Filling Our Lives With Things That Are Good
Our Valentine's FHE

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Controlling Anger - Nails in the Fence FHE

Last night for Family Home Evening, we had a lesson about "Controlling Your Anger".
I saw the "Nails in the Fence" story on Facebook, and used that as my lesson.

 

Nails In The Fence
Author Unknown

There once was a little boy who had a bad temper. His father gave him a bag of nails and told him that every time he lost his temper, he must hammer a nail into the back of the fence.

The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Over the next few weeks, as he learned to control his anger, the number of nails hammered daily gradually dwindled down. He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence.

Finally the day came when the boy didn't lose his temper at all. He told his father about it and the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper. The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone.

The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. He said, "You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same. When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. It won't matter how many times you say I'm sorry, the wound is still there."

The little boy then understood how powerful his words were. He looked up at his father and said "I hope you can forgive me father for the holes I put in you."

"Of course I can," said the father.


I read the story, but left out the part about putting a knife in a man (a bit too gory for my taste).
Then I had each kid take turns hammering a nail into a piece of wood and then taking it out.

The kids enjoyed the hands on aspect of the lesson, and  I thought this was a good way to demonstrate the damage that can be done when we say and do things in anger.

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