Special Santa
This “Special Santa” is an almost exact replica of the one I had growing up as a kid. My mother always made sure to incorporate Christ into our Christmas traditions and this one was by far one of my absolute favorites as a child. Now that I have started it with my own children, I see how it is a favorite for them as well! They look forward to talking about Jesus’s life every single day as we countdown to Christmas.
It’s easy to get caught up in the gift giving, stores, and hustle of the holidays, but if we can incorporate Jesus Christ into our traditions we are able to remember what Christmas is about, our Savior’s birth and His life. As a parent, I want my children to develop a love for our Savior Jesus Christ and for his atoning sacrifice. This simple activity is a great way to do that. It helps you slow down and remember Christ during the Christmas season, as well as a daily teaching moment and reminder for your children.
How It Works
My mom created it so you can put a scripture card into each of the 25 little bags along with one small treat for each member of your family. For example, if your family has four children, you could put four starbursts in it, along with the scripture card (file attached below). Every night your children take turns pulling out one of the bags and that’s the scripture that you talk about that evening.
Growing up my mother actually did it a bit differently where we went in order and she hung up pictures that coordinated with the scriptures in the house as part of our regular family scripture study in the mornings. By Christmas day we had 25 pictures reflecting pieces of the Savior’s life hung up in our home. Our Special Santa was a separate activity that was more of simply a fun countdown with the treats. When she gave my five other siblings and I our own Special Santas last year she combined the activities by doing it this way. We loved it! Combining the scripture stories with the Santa, made learning about Jesus even more exciting. However, putting the cards in the bags did make the stories of Christ’s life out of order. This year we decided we are going to do the scriptures and videos she created with our special Santa, but try going in order and see how we like it. Regardless of how you do it, you will be inviting the spirit into your home and learning more about our Savior’s life with your family.
Additional Resources
The “videos” my mom is referring to is from The Life of Jesus Christ Bible Videos and is only five dollars, or you can find the videos for free here on LDS.org. Other videos that my children love are animated videos of The New Testament and other scriptures from Living Scriptures. You can sign up for online streaming and get your first month for free. We also use these scriptures every day with our girls. They are perfect for younger children. We have the Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants versions of these books and we have read all of them with our oldest and are now reading them with our 2 year old as well. They are simple enough for the girls to quickly read through them, and they really start to understand the stories in the scriptures with the associated illustrations. With older children you can read through all of the verses listed on the Santa Scripture Countdown along with the added videos. With our young children ages 4, 2 and 10 months, we watch the videos, read the illustrated scriptures and summarize everything again to reiterate the stories.
I am so thankful for this holiday season that we have to reflect more on our Savior and his life. I’m grateful for his example of selflessness and love. I love him. He is my King. Because he died, we can all live again. Because he died, we can have true happiness and everlasting peace. The more we learn about our Savior, the more we can truly start to become more like him. I hope you can enjoy reading about the stories of Jesus Christ with your family. Happy Holidays.
Countdown Santa Scriptures File (put together by Kimberli Burbank)
