Welcome to your twenty-five day countdown and thriving guide. Make sure you click the follow via email button on the right to receive your “25 Days of Thriving through Christmas” in your inbox each day! Raising children from hard places is challenging. Surviving the holidays with a smile on your face while parenting is even more challenging, that’s why the Positive Adoption Team has put together this handy little series. Don’t stress. It’s not a huge to-do, not more than a paragraph or two each day. Easy peasy and encouraging. So, take a minute each morning, open your inbox and read. This year, let’s not just survive the Christmas season, let’s thrive!

Tip 12-

Make sure you are present.

We moms want our kids to have the best Christmas ever. We do everything we can to make it possible. Sometimes we get caught up in the doing. Wrapping presents behind closed doors. Baking. Shopping. Planning. It is good work. Kids sometimes don’t get it though. They cannot wait for the day. They need us Moms now. In the present, not the future. They are in the here and now. Not the future.

Biblical Application:

 In the beginning [before all time] was the Word (Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God Himself.

He was present originally with God.

 And the Word (Christ) became flesh (human, incarnate) and tabernacled (fixed His tent of flesh, lived awhile) among us; and we [actually] saw His glory (His honor, His majesty), such glory as an only begotten son receives from his father, full of grace (favor, loving-kindness) and truth. -John 1, 2, 14

Jesus was Christmas present. He was present originally with God (John 1:2) The Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). Let us not be only words.  Let us be present in word and deed. I know, it’s tough. I have “just a minuted’ my kids just as much as the next gal. I have put doing above being. I have put white lights on my tree when my kids begged for colored. I spoken words and not followed through. Let’s make it a point, together, not to do that. Let us be present this season for our children when regression strikes, when triggers come out of the woodwork, when they ask us to keep our promise and play a game or have a tea party with plastic food.