One of my kids favorite things that we have done at Christmas is our “Happy Birthday Jesus” cake that we enjoy each day on Christmas day.  It's super fun for the kids, and actually is a great way to present the good news of Jesus to your kids.  Each layer has a meaning and it's fun for the kids to get involved in making and telling about each layer.

Last year we had our cake and Aaron and D thought it was funny to put a number on the cake with the candles.  Looks like we only had a 7 & a 6 laying around so that's what we ended up with.

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The cake is three layers and super easy to make.  I'll get red & green food coloring, two boxes of cake mix, 1 chocolate, and 1 plain, vanilla icing, some candles and yellow icing.  That's it.  Mix up both cakes and divide the plain in half and add red food coloring to one and green to the other.  So you'll bake 3 cakes in about an 8 inch pan (I think – if it's wrong I'll fix it today after I bake it!) and you'll have extra chocolate left over so you can make some cupcakes or something.  Then let them all cool, and begin layering with your icing.  Done.  As you can see from the above picture I'm not a very good baker and the cake looks awful, but the kids still love it!  I also like to think it's a representation of me before God … messy but wonderful!

The bottom layer is brown for our sin, then middle layer is red for the blood that Jesus shed for us, and the top layer is green to represent new life in Jesus.  Then the icing is white to represent our holiness before God because of Jesus.  I've also heard of people using the white to represent Jesus' righteousness, either way works.  Both the same.  Jesus IS righteous and we are also righteous before God because of Jesus.  Win for us.

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I found out about this idea from my friend Julie who always has awesome ideas on her blog about teaching your kids about Jesus.  Love her heart as a momma.

This past Sunday our pastor preached about the importance of Jesus' birth and how he always knew what the end would entail.  It's super good and if you need something to listen to while you are cooking, cleaning, wrapping gifts, or on a morning jog, I recommend this.  Click HERE to listen.

What about you.  

Do you celebrate Jesus' birth on Christmas morning?  What do you do it?

Jamie Ivey