The Happy Birthday Jesus Party...

On December 16, the day before the flu hit, I attended Madison's Christmas program at "Wee Ones" preschool.

All of the little ones--known as "The Angel Band"--marched into the building wearing t-shirts that they'd helped to decorate. So cute!

Then they sang a total of four short songs for us, which were just precious--especially one called "Two By Two" where they did imitations of the animals on Noah's ark. I took a little video of Madison singing, but have yet to figure out how to get it off my camera and on to this blog...maybe one day!

I was so excited to get to see all of the little ones perform on stage, but I received much more than I anticipated--I received a blessing-and a reminder of what Christmas is all about.

There was a birthday cake for Jesus, and everything about the cake represented something. *The cake was chocolate--to symbolize our sin. *The cake was covered with white frosting--to symbolize that Jesus' purity covers our sins. *The cake was topped with a star and an angel--to symbolize the bearer of the first glad tidings. *There were 12 candles to represent that Christ is our light throughout the year. *The cake was encircled with evergreens to represent everlasting life. Wasn't that neat? I thought so!

After the program was finished, all of the children gathered around the table at the back of the room, sang "Happy Birthday, Jesus", then blew out the candles together. It was the sweetest thing I've seen in a long time--and it definitely reminded me of "the real reason for the season"!

One of the most impressive things to me, was how those teachers managed to teach 18 four-year-olds to keep jingle bells quiet in their hands until it was time to ring them! Now that's a feat!!! If you've ever worked with little ones, you'll know what I mean.

Below is a close-up of Madison wearing her "Angel Band" t-shirt. I just loved it, and was so proud of my daughter for helping to make those shirts!