Make Jesus’ Manger Soft With Kindness: An Advent Activity

“I’m participating in the Spend-Less Holidays: Saving While Savoring the Season Blog Carnival, hosted by The Frugal Fil-Am and Dainty Mom. We’ll be sharing our tips on how to spend less this holiday season, so that we can have a more meaningful Christmas. Please scroll down to the end of the post to see the list of carnival entries.”

Finding meaningful activities for Advent has been a special interest of mine since taking on the responsibility of educating my daughter in her preschool years. Every occasion and happenstance is a learning opportunity for us!

Advent is such a wonderful time for families to create or strengthen their traditions. And you can’t have too many of them! For this year, we are again going to make our Jesse Tree, light up luminarias, unwrap one or more Christmas books a day, and finally, make Jesus’ manger soft with our kind deeds!

My mother-in-law, when I asked her, said that she has been doing this activity for more than ten years now. The rule is simple. For every kind deed that you do for the day, you can lay down a straw on the manger. On Christmas Eve, you place the Baby Jesus in the soft manger that your family has worked for to give Him!

Children LOVE the idea of helping Jesus become more comfortable, and would thoughtfully, intentionally perform acts of kindness. This activity perfectly complements our recent focus on the virtue Kindness too!

How To Make Your Own

Making your own “Kindness Kit,” as my bookshop partner Sanne Unson calls it, is easy and inexpensive. You can use your existing nativity set or make your own “stand-alone” kit. Here are some ideas to pick from.

Manger

• Shoe or craft box
• Cheese box
• Small basket

Straw

• Raffia
• Yellow yarn
• Twine

Baby Jesus

• Finger puppet 
• Clay
• Small baby doll

Keeping Our Focus

With all the presents that we give and receive, and parties that we prepare and attend during the Christmas season, it is so very easy to spend too much and to lose our focus on who and why we are celebrating.

This simple activity is a fun exercise for even very young children to grasp the true meaning of Christmas: love, kindness, sacrifice.

As parents, it is our duty to show our children more than what the world is showing them. Taking advantage of special occasions, like Christmas, to teach and guide our children is a gift that will bear fruit in the future.

Other Spend-Less Christmas Carnival Participants