Anonymous Blessings and Truth in the Tinsel

Every year at Christmas time you hear on the news about people paying off layaway for others and people finding money on their doorstep or in their mailbox and this year it happened to me! Last Friday I received an envelope in the mail with no return address and inside their was only a small note that said, "Merry Christmas! May God bless you!" and $150 in cash! The envelope had my first and last name and my current Idaho address. Seeing as we've lived in Idaho for less than two months, I initially assumed it had to be someone who knew me. I have no idea how anyone else would get my address. Never the less, I wanted to make sure we did something meaningful with this blessing.
If you remember, I had posted a Jesse Tree reading plan using the Jesus Storybook Bible that I was intending on doing with the kids this year. Well, instead of doing that, I decided to use the mystery money to buy the necessary craft supplies to do Truth in the Tinsel with the kiddos instead. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but we don't do Santa with our kids. Never have, and never will. I would write out all the reasons for that, but the lovely Jen Hatmaker already has a blog post the sums it up with much better writing skills than I posses, so I'll just link you to her thoughts. I'm sure most of you are familiar with the Elf on the Shelf unless you either don't have kids or live under a rock, and that was a big influence in us choosing to go with Truth in the Tinsel. I wanted something that created that same daily sense of anticipation and excitement for my children, but centered on Jesus instead. After all, isn't that what Advent is all about? I like the hands on nature and creative outlet that goes with Truth in the Tinsel, but knew we wouldn't be able to do it because I just don't have a ton of craft supplies on hand after moving. However, with the arrival of money we weren't expecting I suddenly DID have money to go out and get all the supplies!
Here is our first week of ornaments: