Train Up a Child: ChristmasSample

You can read the devotion out loud as a family, giving two people a part to read. Or have one person read it out loud. Have fun with the voices and characters, and if you're up for it, you can even act out the script!

Bring Your Own Snowballs: A Tropical Christmas

Janet enters the room rolling a carry-on bag behind her. She looks at her watch.

Janet: Timothy Simon Markwell, where are you? We’re loading up the van.

Timmy: I’m coming!

Janet: If we don’t leave in the next ten minutes we’ll miss our flight!

Timmy enters dragging a cooler behind him. He proudly stops in front of her and places it at her feet.

Janet: What’s this?

Timmy: My carry-on. You said we each get one.

Janet: There’s no way that will fit in the overhead bin.

Timmy: Do we have a smaller one?

Janet: What do you need a cooler for, anyway? There are fridges in Florida!

Janet leans over and pops open the lid. She closes the lid and covers her face with her hands.

Janet: Timmy!

Timmy: I’ve been gathering snow balls and putting them in the freezer for the last two weeks so I can take them on the trip. It’s not Christmas without snow.

Janet: Honey, that’s really sweet, and yet again you’ve given me great material to share at your wedding someday, but please go and get your suitcase.

Timmy: If I can’t bring this then I’d rather not go!

Janet: You’ve dreamt about going to Disney World since you were in diapers. This is a family trip of a life time!

Timmy: But how can we have Christmas if we’re not at home? With no tree? With no snow?

Janet: That’s not what Christmas is about and you know better than that.

Timmy: But we’ll be in a place with so many other people we don’t know.

Janet: That’s true.

Timmy: I won’t have my own bed. I won’t have all my toys. Everything will be different.

Janet: Come here.

She pulls him into a side hug.

Janet: It’s okay to be nervous about the trip.

Timmy: It is?

Janet: Of course. It’s a big deal for all of us. But you know what?

Timmy: What?

Janet: That feeling is actually more like the feeling at the first Christmas than anything else.

Timmy: Being scared?

Timmy sits on the cooler.

Janet: I think so. Mary and Joseph, they made a big trip too. A long, long way to Bethlehem on a dusty road with no snow. They left everything they knew and the comforts of their own home on that first Christmas. Everything for them was unknown. They didn’t have a tree. They didn’t have a big family meal. They didn’t even have a bed to sleep in.

Timmy: But they had Jesus.

Janet: Literally. And now he’s with us. Wherever we go. Even to Florida.

Timmy: But I’ve never been on an airplane before. I’ve only been thinking about being at Disney World, not getting there.

Janet: Well, I think this is a good thing then.

Timmy: How?

Janet: The next time we read the Christmas story you’ll understand even better that Mary and Joseph were real people like us who had the same kind of worries and fears. And how Jesus can bring you peace in your heart whenever or wherever you need it. At home or in Florida.

She looks at her watch.

Janet: Yikes. Buddy, we need to go.

Timmy: Okay.

He stands up.

Janet: Without the cooler.

Timmy: I wanted to surprise John and Sarah with a snowball or two.

Janet: I’ll tell you what. They’re outside right now. What’s say we launch a surprise attack after you go grab your suitcase. You take John. I’ll get your dad and Sarah.

Timmy is excited at the suggestion and opens the cooler lid.

Timmy: Sounds good to me.