The Donkey In the Living Room: A Tradition That Celebrates the Real Meaning of Christmas

Check out the video at http://www.amazon.com/author/sarahcunningham or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxWz6J3B6OM to hear the author read a sample story and explain how to use the book with your family. A clever tradition for use with any manger scene, this is the "Elf on the Shelf" for people trying to inject deeper meaning into commercial-driven,toy-heavy holidays. ABOUT DONKEY IN THE LIVING ROOM If you watch Christmas specials, bake holiday cookies, hang twinkle lights or cut down a tree as a family, this is another "keeper"--a simple yearly tradition that emphasizes meaning over commercialism. The Donkey in the Living Room is a timeless Christmas classic in the making, especially for those who wish to keep the story of Christ at the center of the winter holiday season. Illustrations in the book include light and dark-skinned, male and female figures in order to welcome a diverse range of readers. The book can be used with any manger scene--ceramic, wood, plastic or otherwise. A CLEVER NEW CHRISTMAS TRADITION When I was a little girl, a donkey arrived exactly nine days before Christmas. But it wasn’t just any donkey. Every morning after my brothers and I rolled out of bed, we would scramble out to the living room where a tiny package wrapped in Christmas paper would be waiting on our mantle. When our little fingers ripped through the wrapping, we’d uncover a figurine from the family Nativity scene: a donkey or Joseph . . . or perhaps, as we neared Christmas day, an angel. After we uncovered the figurine, our dad would tell us an enchanted holiday story from a manger scene long, long ago. And he would tell it from the point of view of the figurine we placed in his hands. Every day, we would unwrap a new figurine, gradually collecting the pieces of Christ’s birthday story. When my brothers and I were young, we repeated this tradition several years in a row. And when we got old enough, Dad began to let us tell the parts of the stories we knew. Now, we have children of our own and we are still telling this all-important story. I want to invite you and your family into this tradition, to have your children unwrap the manger figurines along with us each day leading up to Christmas. And to teach your children and grand children to tell and re-tell this story as well, so that the world will always remember the real meaning of Christmas.