Do Instead of Plan to Do-Month Twelve

It’s Christmas time, yay! I love Christmas. It’s a time of renewal, birth, rebirth and light… you get the picture. It’s the everything wonderful season. It’s also busy and provides a generous amount of buying, doing and scheduling stress. Hopefully this month’s list will not just be another stressor for you, but a helpful conclusion to these 12 months of getting prepared.


I think there are so many lessons in the Christmas story and of course, I even see lessons for family preparedness in the nativity story. The most obvious lesson that applies to food storage is that even the greatest accomplishment (the atonement) and the greatest life ever lived, all started with a baby. The way of truth always starts with something small and grows. Never are we asked to do everything and be everything all at once. Line upon line and day upon day and babyhood before childhood and so forth. Preparing a home and family are accomplished in the exact same ways, one small goal at a time.





Even this article series is based upon that principle. First accomplish a great 72 hr. emergency survival kit and then add regularly until an entire food storage system is in place to bless your family. Doing it faster than you have time and means provided is very unwise and leads to giving up, or having nothing at all. As you hold the following Family Home Evening and accomplish this, may I suggest that first and foremost you celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior. Enjoy your precious family whether they be many or few or just you. Let the doing of preparedness this month be a very distant second to the place of Jesus Christ’s birth and life.


December Preparedness
Family Home Evening

Opening Song: O Little Town Of Bethlehem, LDS Hymns, pg. 208

Thought: Anything big or wonderful or powerful you want to change or do in your life begins with small steps and by small things. The scriptures tell us by small and simple things are great things brought to pass. Jesus Christ was an example of this eternal principle. He was a simple man. He never received a high school diploma or a college degree. He never wrote a book or earned a great title given by his peers in this life. The lists of all the things He never did and places He never went and so forth is long, but by His perfect life and growth in wisdom and stature and His growth in favor with both God and man, He developed a life of perfect service, example and love and fulfilled the mission He promised to fill… Savior of all mankind.

Ask family members to think about the great things they would like to do with their own lives and then have each family member write down the baby steps that they will need to do first in order to bring those great things about. Read the first paragraph of this article to them and ask them to also think of small ways they can help the family to become prepared with food storage and a 72 hour preparedness plan.

List 12

Place all the information parts of this list in the notebook you have in your 72 hr. kit

Plan an evacuation procedure with your family and also discuss what you would do in an emergency if you were not all together. Discuss with children that they are to stay at school for instance, and follow the instructions of teachers and the school officials. Express your confidence in those who care for your children. Discuss different scenerios such as fire, earthquake, flood or security lockdown.