The Giving Manger from WorthyKids: A TOS Crew Review

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through the Homeschool Review Crew

The Giving Manger from WorthyKids

Our family loves traditions, and advent!  The Giving Manger from WorthyKids is a wonderful new advent tradition for the entire family!  This 32 page, hardcover book comes packaged with a wooden manger, straw and a "baby Jesus".  

The story, written by Allison Hottinger, mom of 5 children,  centers around Matthew 25:40 - and focuses on giving acts of service, instead of receiving presents, as our "gift" for this season.  What a timely message!  

The book tells the story of a young father that decides to lead his family to give gifts of service each day of advent, instead of presents.  The story details that the children, while disappointed at first, come to understand the joy found in giving to each other. The family places a single piece of straw into the manager for each "gift", making a soft bed. On Christmas Day, they place the Baby Jesus in the manager, "full of love".

The illustrations by Emily King are delightful cut-paper style collage pictures.  I love that she left the faces blank, so you can imagine yourself.

The book includes several pages of "Manager Moments" with suggested service activities for children, teens and families.   The activities are all aimed to create a heart to give, instead of receive.

"Manager Memories" are a couple of lined pages for you to record your families memories from the year, creating a family keepsake.

I love filling our home with Christmas books, beginning in Advent.  The Giving Manger  is sure to become a family classic!

Find WorthyKids on Social Media:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WorthyKidsBooks
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/worthykidsbooks/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thegivingmanger/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/worthykids/



Hashtags: #hsreviews #TheGivingManger #adventtraditions       

See what other members of the Crew thought here

                       

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas

From the Bentz Bunch

Matt is celebrating this Christmas with the Savior of the World.  They are celebrating together in Heaven where God has wiped away every tear and there is no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for all things have been made new. 

Isaiah’s words have been particularly comforting to us this year.  The Lord has been close to our broken hearts – our counselor, our mighty God, our father and ultimately our peace.  I pray that each of you can know HIM in this deep way this season.

I want to share some of Matt’s final words… his gift to us. 

“God is Good, all the time.”

   

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this. Isaiah 9:6-7

Christmas Stollen - a family tradition!

Merry Christmas Friends!

The Bentz Bunch is full of food traditions...  I have one to share with you.  We have this each year with our Christmas morning Fruit Soup and Christmas Stollen. (can you tell we're Germans?)


German Stollen

1 package of active dry yeast or 1 cake compressed yeast

1/4 cup water

1/2 cup butter or margarine

1 cup milk, scalded

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom

4-3/4 to 5 cups sifted enriched flour

1 egg

1 cup raisins

1/2 cup currants

1/4 cup chopped mixed candied fruits

2 tablespoons grated orange peel

1 tablespoon grated lemon peel

1/4 cup chopped blanched almonds

Soften active yeast in 1/4 cup warm water or compressed yeast in 1/4 cup of lukewarm water.

 Melt butter in hot milk; add sugar, salt and cardamom; cool to lukewarm. Stir in 2 cups flour. Add egg and beat well. Stir in softened yeast, fruits, peels, and nuts. Add remaining flour to make soft dough. Turn out on lightly floured surface.

Cover and let rest 10 minutes. Knead 5 to 8 minutes or till smooth and satiny. Place in lightly greased bowl, turning once to grease surface. 

Cover; let rise in warm place till double, about 1 1/2 hours. Punch down; turn out on lightly floured surface and divide in 3 equal parts. Cover; let rest 10 minutes.

Roll each part into a 12X7 inch rectangle. without stretching dough, fold long side over to within 1 inch of opposite side to make typical stollen shape; seal edges. 

Place on greased baking sheets. Cover, let rise till almost double, about 30-45 minutes.

Bake in moderate oven (375) 20 to 25 minutes, or till golden brown.

While warm, brush with butter; sift confectioners' sugar over; or glaze as below.

 Makes 3 loaves. 

To glaze stollen use about 2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar, add 1/4 cup hot water and 1 teaspoon butter. (I put almond flavoring in my glaze)

It looks like a lot of work...but it's so worth it!!  Family traditions are our way of saying - "I love you" - Merry Christmas!

Tacos and Trees

Tacos and trees, another Bentz tradition!

I just took the two college kids back after a wonderful break.  So, I'm feeling lonely and started looking through our pictures.

Have I told you about our family tradition of picking our our Christmas Tree, after going out for Tacos?  What else do you do in South Texas?

Here we are - my favorites all at one table!  The college boys do NOT let us get the tree until we get them home...I think it's more about the tacos for them!

They humor me every year....

Journey to Bethlehem

Our Coop had our first ever Drama!

A beautiful Christmas story, and our younger students worked very hard!!

My little angels!

Elf Louise

One of our favorite December activities is wrapping presents for Elf Louise - a San Antonio ministry for underprivileged families.

Our Honor Society (and extra Coop friends) spent a few hours picking out presents and wrapping them.

We specialize in the BIG families, and we pray over every package!

 It's a very impressive stack of presents - it will take hundreds more Santa volunteers to deliver them!

Christmas Memories - 2017

One of my favorite family traditions is our Christmas gift name exchange.

We draw names on the first day of Advent.  However, instead of just buying a gift, all the gifts have to be hand made, and under $10.   My girls love it, my boys get a bit stretched :-)

Everyone loves their gifts - and they are blessed in the process of making them too!


Here's a recap of this year:

Chloe to Lydia - Succulents in Goodwill teacups, so adorable for our resident botanist.

Essie to Selah - an adorable painted animal and a pretty new headband.

Luke to Sam - A canvas with his favorite missionary quotes in a collage.

Sam to Essie - a BIG E - she loves it!

Matt to Chloe - he made a  mini covered wagon,  I sorta was in the moment and missed the pic ;-)

Selah to Noah - a jar of "Elf Snot" slime with a candy surprise inside.

Josh to Matt - floss wrapped pens in all the MN team colors and Soduku book. 

Noah to Luke - the "tradition" continued with a candy-scavenger hunt.  The clues all had a rhyming broadway theme.  So fun!!

Since I'm the camera girl - no one took a picture of mine.

Selah to Mom - a quilted "correcting" kit - complete with red pens, supplies and my favorite candies!  I love it!!

Elf Louise

One of our favorite traditions in SA is wrapping gifts with Elf Louise.  This organization provides gift to needy children each year.

My kiddos love getting to pick and wrap, and they pray over each family.  I pray their Christmas is as blessed as ours.

It's truly humbling to see all these gifts, wrapped and ready for families who need them...

The Honor Society kids!

Nutcracker!

One of our favorite Christmas activities is going to see The Nutcracker (or dance in it..)

This year, the girls and I decided we did NOT need any male input, and had a girls date.  How nice to just enjoy the performance with no rude comments!

It was beautiful - as usual!