How To Plan, Organize and ROCK a Truth in the Tinsel Swap

This is a guest post from a Truth in the Tinsel fan, Children’s Ministry alum and all around amazing woman, Sunny Cote.

We mamas have good intentions.  Really, we do.  But if you are anything like me, the daily grind of feeding, diapering, cleaning, educating, discipling and refereeing takes up a great deal of time and a blink later it’s bedtime for our little cherubs and our plans for a fun tea party/pinterest worthy crafts/fill-in-the-blank/ fly out the window like a kite dancing in the sky on a windy day!  Does anyone feel me?

And then, there’s December.  I actually LOVE everything about Christmas.  I love having the opportunity to teach my kids about the true reason for celebrating Christmas-the birth of our Lord, Jesus Christ.  However, December can get awfully busy and unless I’m super purposeful all those good intentions can easily get pushed aside as I prepare for guests, parties, shopping, food…it can be so overwhelming!

But then amidst the busyness comes the soft, sweet reminder of Jesus speaking to Martha in Luke 10 “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.” Mamas, it is a busy season, but shouldn’t we choose the one thing that truly matters?  Shouldn’t we make certain our children learn the wonderful news of our Savior’s birth and worship Him?

Well, that is exactly why my family LOVES Truth in the Tinsel! It is such a fun and purposeful way to focus the Christmas season on Jesus every day.  And best yet, my kids beg to have our devotion time every day!  Now I’ll admit that I am a craft lover and my 4 kids (ages 7, 6, 4, & 2) are craft fanatics, but it can be a bit daunting to gather lots of craft supplies and organize them for each day of Advent; I get it.  But guess what?  There is an amazingly easy way to gather, prepare and organize all the Truth in the Tinsel crafts and you don’t have to do it all by yourself!!  After all, when you get a group of girlfriends together, ain’t nothin’ we can’t do!

And, this is where the idea for doing a “Busy Bag” style Truth in the Tinsel Swap was born.

Interested?  Well, read on my sisters!

In order to organize a Truth in the Tinsel Activity Swap, you simply need a group of women who would like to participate.  I began by sharing my experience with T in the T by showing everyone my printed ebook placed in page protectors in a binder, pictures of my kids doing the crafts and sharing a few of the wonderful spiritual conversations that resulted from doing these activities.  Afterward, there were masses of women asking to participate.

So, I simply passed around a sign-up sheet for each mom to fill in their name, email, and the number of children in their family that would be participating in the crafts.  Next, I sent each mom an email asking them to purchase and download their own copy of T in the T and to email me once they did this.

Then, I sent a second email with the swap date, supplies that everyone needed to plan to have on hand such as glue, markers, glitter glue, etc. and finally the craft assignments for each mom.  So, depending on the number of women participating each mom would be assigned one of the 24 days and they would only purchase supplies and prepare for that one craft, but they would make enough for all the children who were participating.

Each mom would then prepare craft supplies (not prepared crafts—just supplies for the craft) and place them in a baggie, labeled according to the appropriate day.  For example, if I was participating and I was supposed to prepare crafts for 42 children, and my assigned day was “Day 3” I would prepare 42 bags and place inside each one enough supplies to make the Zechariah ornament and label all the bags “Day 3.”

On the day of the swap, each mom should bring their prepared craft bags as well as a large paper bag with their last name and the number of T in the T kits they ordered clearly marked on the bag.  This paper bag will be what the leave with at the end of the swap party.  The person organizing would then line up the prepared days of crafts in numerical order.

I highly recommend making this a fun, social time for moms to perhaps have a cup of tea or coffee and visit while a couple of organizers prepare all of the family bags.  This helps to ensure that each family bag gets the right number of each craft…you know, fewer hands equals fewer errors.   Here is the very best news, after the organizers prepare the family bags, each mom walks away with their entire T in the T kit for all of their children assembled and ready to go for all 24 days of the Advent season!  Can I get an AMEN?!!

So there you go mamas!  This is a way to equip not only yourself, but all your sister friends as well!  Can you imagine the impact that working together to make this happen will have on all our children?  What if you presented this idea to your MOPs group at church or your small group?  What if your Children’s Ministry program got on board?  Can you imagine the impact this might have on families who aren’t yet Christ-followers, but who attend MOPs or another similar program to socialize with other moms? I can’t wrap my mind around the possibilities, but God can!  And just maybe YOU could be a small part of His BIG story this Christmas season!

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Sunny Coté is a wife and mama of 4 children, ages 7, 6, 4 & 2, who keep her on her toes! She has worked in children’s ministry for the past 7 ½ years and served most recently as the Director of Training & Development at a large mega church in the Washington D.C. area. Sunny is passionate about equipping families to live out an everyday faith and enjoys speaking on various topics related to parenting and children’s ministry.

Note from Amanda: Are you so inspired by this?! You know, it’s not too late to get this together. You could even set up a swap for Days 5-24 and have a party the first of December! And if you don’t have 24 mamas who want to participate, you could just have 12 and everyone could prepare two crafts. If you have a question or a great idea about hosting a Truth in the Tinsel swap, please leave a comment below so we can all talk about it!

2014 Update: See the details (Part 1 and Part 2) of MY Atlanta Swap Party!
2015 Update: See our awesome party + the cutest Advent Calendar craft ever!