The Spirit of Christmas - The White Stocking

I was looking online this morning for some ideas to supplement my Young Women's lesson this Sunday.  I so want the spirit to touch each Young Women's heart each time.  It's one of so few opportunities to do so.  There's this burning desire to want them to know what the spirit feels like so they recognize it and seek for it in their lives. Besides the fact that I want to feel it too.

I came across the idea of the White Stocking.  What an awesome idea for Young Women's & Monday's FHE!  You can find it here.  There is a lesson outline and list of scriptures of the gifts we can give.  Definitely for the Smith family FHE.  I'm still formulating YW.

White Stocking Poem
It wasn’t that anyone had really been forgotten,
no children had been slighted or made unhappy
and no adult had been left unremembered.
The presents had all been distributed
and all the stockings were beautifully filled,
all that is except one;
It was the stocking intended for the child of Bethlehem.
Of all the people belonging at that Christmas gathering,
only He had been forgotten.
Only He had been left out of the festivities.
This didn’t seem quite right,
inasmuch as it was His birthday that was being celebrated.

This year, hang this little white stocking
in a special place in your home.
On Christmas Eve, as you reflect upon the Savior,
write on a piece of paper
a gift for Christ to be placed in the stocking.
It will remain in the stocking
until next year’s Christmas Eve,
When you can reach into the stocking
and read the paper from the year before,
written from your heart to the Savior.

We hope that you will enjoy beginning this
Holiday tradition. Your gift could include:
personal goals you wish to achieve,
or relationships you wish to improve,
ways you will be of service to others in the coming year.
Whatever you choose, may this gift to the Savior
bring you closer to Him as you walk in His light
And follow in His footsteps.

Another lesson focused around the Nativity that I liked as well.  You can find it here.  It would be another great FHE idea.  Funny how that works.  It has a fun game called the Left Right Christmas Nativity Story. 

"In those days, Caesar Augustus decided to count everyone LEFT living in the whole Roman world. Joseph LEFT, taking Mary with him RIGHT to his town of Bethlehem to register."

Young children would find this a fun activity most of all.  Gives them the opportunity to move along with the story - be part of it.

The Smith's Have Goats!

Gotcha!  Yes, the Smith's have (3) baby goats - it's just not these Smith's!  I'm not overly clever very often but I thought I was pretty clever with this one.

The other Smith's are the previous Bishop of our branch and his wife - Bill & Louise Smith.  (No relation - darn it!  They might not want to claim us but we would claim them in a heart beat.)  The have (3) three week old baby goats that they are bottle feeding.  They had invited anyone who wanted to come and see them and take a turn feeding them to come on by.  So come on by we did.






It was a Monday.  What better thing to do for FHE - thank you Macey for your insistence.  John was in Palm Beach Gardens for some partner meetings so he missed our little family 'farm' experience.  It would probably have brought back some fond memories of home.  He grew up on  a small farm.  I don't think he had goats as a child but they did have cows and chickens.

I had taken two of the young women to Joann's after school to pick out their TREK skirt & bonnet material.  One of the girls lived out in the same area as the goats so I offered to take her home.  We called the 'other' Smith's on our way and they said, "come on out!"  We had a blast in case you can't tell.  The kids thought they were in heaven.

Parker insists that's the life he wants to live - on a farm.  I've tried to impress upon him all the work that this would entail.  He seems to think it would be 'fun'!  He moans and groans when I ask him to let the dog out, mow the small backyard or take out the trash.  Mmmm - I think he would tire of 'life on the farm' real quick.