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Once Upon A Nativity
3.837 $
93
The inspiration...
I’ve been asking myself these questions as I sort through the mound of gifts in our three-season porch and organize what is for who? I think about the years our family has scraped by and barely bought our first child a gift. I think about the year, more recent, when we have given our children much. And now this year, I think about if there is really a difference between the years of when we give a lot or a little? Was one year less magical then the last? What if no cookies were baked, cards sent, or presents wrapped. What if that fat jolly man didn’t fly reindeer over your home and what if no elf sat on a shelf? Would Christmas magic still exist?
I thought about the fourth of July and how it doesn’t feel like the 4th without hotdogs, a lake shore, being with friends and family playing lawn games and of course fireworks. The years I had to miss fireworks it didn’t feel the same. But should Christmas be the same as all other holidays? Should I feel like Christmas just isn’t the same without all of the stuff?
The answer I want to give is that the Christmas “magic” would still be fully and completely calling and captivating our hearts, filling us with so much hope that it spills over into our lives with the greatest gift of love and acceptance and unity. But the answer deep inside says, “No” – Christmas needs stuff to be special.
I didn’t like my honest answer but, I went to God with it and this is the message I found to wrap me up tight like a winter scarf.
When the stress of our artificial Christmas magic overtakes our joy then our spirit leads witness that we are missing out on the true magic of the Christmas season. The magic of the Christmas season that always fills us up with hope, reassures us of our worth, and surrounds us in love.
Lamentations 3:22-23 – “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”
(Here is a video of our family doing one of the activities when we learned about having a heart of worship)
As a creative, somewhat over the top person I always dreamed of the age when my kids would wake to glitter snow trails leading out our fireplace and of course gifts piled high with labels from Santa. I struggled with this idea of Christmas traditions and how to make them fit into our Christian view for 3 years now. I read countless blogs on how moms incorporated Santa into Christmas and made it “Christian” but as much as I wanted to make it work I felt like it just wasn’t a good fit for our family. When my 3 year old told me what Christmas was all about I knew I couldn’t settle anymore with the option of Santa + Jesus + tons of gifts = Christian Christmas
I’ll never forget her saying, “Christmas is about Jesus but I know it is really about gifts, cookies, & Santa too.”
Our actions spoke a million times louder then our words and I knew I couldn’t be upset with her answer. We were all pretending the season was about Jesus while we focused on everything else, I mean everything, even Christmas church service was about pretty little dresses and patent leather shoes. It wasn’t like we didn’t drop change into the little red buckets outside of stores, or buy gifts for those less fortunate, and it wasn’t that any of those things were wrong I just felt our core focus was wrapped around something else, everything else, but the reason for the season.
“Could the story of Jesus actually be fun? Could we dust off those nativity sets under the christmas tree and bring them to life?”I wanted something creative and magical but based around Jesus. Something engaging that included so many beloved traditions maybe even a Santa movie here and there but was wrapped around the truth. This is where the book, “Once Upon a Nativity” was dreamed up and written.
(Here is a video of our family doing one of the activities when we read about the angels in Once Upon a Nativity)
Late nights when my girls went to bed I would study the bible story, read articles, talked with pastors, teachers, & moms. Prayerfully I started writing something I gave to my girls for Christmas. Dolls were made and illustrations drawn. A blog was written to document our journey in finding the magic of Christmas once again. And now we are here jumping out in faith hoping to reach this goal so other families, churches, and Christian schools can celebrate this Christmas magic too.
The book...
What's the books layout like?
Each day there is a short story to read, a small prayer to pray, & a question to pose. The gospel message is clearly presented in this book as well as many core messages like service, gratitude, & faithfulness. In the back of the book their is additional craft and activity ideas so you can include the plush dolls and include your family Christmas traditions (i.e. cookie making, card sending, or caroling).
What's with the plush dolls?
Stuffed toys are a great way to engage children with a story so educationally I wanted them included. For our family we hid our dolls each morning with the special activity we were going to do each day. Sometimes they were hidden with a toy, a treat, or a note telling us where we were going for the day (i.e. sledding, the movie theater, or grandmas). Our children knew they were pretend and that they were just dolls & that were like the characters in the story. This could be done in a lot of different ways but for our family that's how we did it & kept it simple.
What's the age range?
Baby until 3rd grade I have used the book with personally, however, all kids are different so I do think you need to customize the activities a bit. I think that you could mature this book for years to come by engaging in different activities spurred on by the core message from that particular day (i.e. serving at a soup kitchen, participating in a toy drive, or delivering blankets to the homeless). Many days I felt like I needed to read the book to be reminded of the reason for Christmas more then my own children & I'm 27.
Basic Breakdown of budget:
- Someone to edit the book
- Someone to illustrate the book
- Book layout and design
- Website/Facebook/Promotion
- Obtain ISBN numbers
- Registration fees and other costs to get listed in online bookstores
- Printing the books
- Making the dolls in an ethical manner
Risiken und Herausforderungen
UPON PURCHASE OF E-BOOK EMAIL ME AT onceuponanativity@gmail.com WITHOUT THIS I WILL NOT BE ABLE TO SEND YOU YOUR E-BOOK UNTIL AFTER DEC 25TH BECAUSE KICKSTARTER DOES NOT RELEASE YOUR INFO UNTIL AFTER MY PROJECT ENDS.
I’ve spent the past year learning everything I can about authoring, publishing and printing. ( I carted 2 small children with goldfish crackers, iPads, and suckers to as many snobby book conference I can get to... lets just say I've done my fair share of work already & gotten plenty of glares) It’s all very exciting, but also all very new. Luckily I have great people helping me and I am someone who can bust things out when the going gets tough. Here's my plan on how to make this succeed:
1. Making the book
I have already written the entire book, studied the Bible and the Nativity story and characters extensively to offer a really playful yet educational book. I have already worked creatively with everyone for design, illustrating, and editing. I hired a talented children's book illustrator, a graphic designer for page layout and design, and a copy editor for proofing. The book part is completely finished we just need to do one final look over before we run the whole lot of books.1
2. Printing the book
When the book leaves my computer, there’s still a lot of things that need to happen. From shipping to printing my biggest fear is if this thing blew up and I had thousands of orders. At that point I would need to hire staff to ship books and process orders. We have a large barn so I figure we could house the books and easily bring staff on for hire but it's something I want to think about when preparing for the best case scenario. I am working with a very reputable agency who works with published authors who sell hundred of thousands of copies. With a small goal of selling just 200 copies it should be more then manageable for them. Once the Kickstarter is ending, I'll know the number of books I can afford and how many should be printed.
3) Shipping the book
Since I know the size of the book & general size of the dolls I am not overly concerned with shipping as I plan on shipping it in a flat rate envelope and shipping directly though the U.S. post office. The E-book will be sent over email and since I want families to be able to use the book right away leading up until Christmas I am taking the risk in knowing you might get that completely for free especially if the kickstarter does not get fully funded. My heart truly is for families to use this book as a tool to teach the gospel so I have accepted this as a possibility.
4) Sewing the dolls
I have already been in contact with a group of women in Haiti sewing & crafting for fair wages with a great business owner working to offer these women a way out of human trafficking. If fully funded and ideally hitting a stretch goal my family will make a trip down to Haiti & work to create new dolls that are affordable, sustainable, and bring joy to many
I’m very committed to making this all happen and feel very privileged by all the support. I will keep you posted, all the way through this process.
Very Merrily,
Ashleigh Harris
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Finanzierungszeitraum
- (37 Tage)