Keeping Christ in Christmas

Tis the season.....to remember Christ's birth.

Now, this is of course not the only time we should remember Christ's birth throughout the year but this is definitely the time of year when we celebrate it.  Also, it should be noted that Christ was probably not born on December 25th but this is the day the world chooses to celebrate Christ's birth.  By "the world", I am referring the people that seem to know about the baby that was born, the manger, the stable, the wise men, Mary and Joseph and all the rest but don't actually take the time to celebrate or remember Him coming into this world.

Growing up I celebrated Christmas with things.  Material things.  The tree, family gatherings, exchanging of gifts, decorations, food, etc.  One main thing was the presents.  My mom LOVED Christmas.  She loved filling the tree with gifts, not that she wanted to take away from Christ, but rather that she loved seeing me and my brother happy when we got that new toy we wanted.  Now, I LOVE presents.  But as I have gotten older and have gotten married etc, I've been thinking about how we celebrate, why we "celebrate" the way we do etc.  I have come to realize that all my Christmas celebrations throughout my whole life have not reflected the celebration of Christ's birth, the one who came into the world to save me from my sin.  He was born so that He could die.

Since I've gotten married, my husband and I are trying to establish some traditions for our family in regards to Christmas.  It's been hard to get going on the things we would love to do, but this year we started a few things.

We are trying to make our main focus about Christ.  We want to celebrate Him and His birth.  We want our children to know that Christmas isn't about decorations, presents, and all the other distractions that come our way around Christmas time but rather that it is about the Son of God who came to seek and to save.

We have received some very negative and discouraging comments regarding our stand for Christ and believe it or not, some of these comments have come from christians.  When talking about what we do at Christmas time, people have sometimes suggested that we are anti-Christmas......when in fact, we are quite the opposite.  We love the fellowship with friends and family, we love the good food, but most of all we love to celebrate Jesus' birth.  Some have given us grief about depriving our children of Santa - really?  What about those who are depriving their children of Christ?

We try very hard not to come down on others for doing presents and other things on Christmas Day.  It is not wrong to give gifts.  Some make the argument that the wise men gave gifts, but let me say this:  They were giving gifts to Christ.  So the question is: what are you giving to Christ this Christmas?  or any other Christmas?  Why gift-giving at Christmas?  Why not the whole year through?

So, what do we do around/on Christmas?

Well, we have decided not to do gifts on Christmas Day.  We realize we live in a world that Christmas is all about gifts, Santa, food and everything else.  We also realize that when our children go to school (if they go to public school) they will feel left out.  So, in order to minimize this, we do our gifts on New Year's Day.

This year we made our own Advent Calendar.  We counted down the days until Jesus' Birthday.  Each day the girls would excitedly wake up, run down stairs and take turns opening the envelope.  Inside would be a surprise such as balloons, raisins, chocolate money, bracelets, home-made tickets to movie nights or Nana's house, etc.  They loved it.  Here's a picture.

We also do not put up a Christmas tree.  BUT, we had a great idea of doing a Jesse Tree.  We are still in the midst of getting this one together.  Hopefully next year we'll be a little more prepared and have all the ornaments ready.  For those who don't know, a Jesse tree is a tree that represents the lineage of Christ up until the birth of Christ.  So basically Jesus' family tree.  So, each day you read a story from the Bible and place an ornament on the tree that corresponds with the story you read.  For example, Genesis 1:1 " In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." So, the ornament would be a picture of a world.  I would love to do wooden ornaments, then I debated about doing the printable ornaments but in all the debate about what I was going to do, I ran out of time and we didn't do any ornaments.  We were not very faithful in the readings but we did them when we could.  I also wish I could have made this tree look a little nicer but here it is.....for this year.

Sad looking Jesse Tree I know.  Don't jump to conclusions just yet.  These presents have only arrived within the last 24 hours - getting ready for New Year's Day.

On Christmas Day, we get up and have a special breakfast.  This year was amazing muffin cups (breakfast casserole).  We also make a birthday cake for Jesus.  We have lunch and sing Happy Birthday to Jesus and then eat the yummy cake!  The girls very much enjoy making the cake and decorating it.  This year, I ruined the cake the night before so I had to make something up.  This year was banana white chocolate chip muffins, crammed in a rectangle dish, iced with chocolate icing and decorated with colourful toppings.

                                                  Petra picking her colors to put on the cake.

                                              Galilee picking her colors to put on the cake.

Having fun decorating!

                                                                The finished product!

There is so much we would love to do on Christmas.  We would love to reach out to those who are lost.  We did up packages last year with a gospel CD.  We gave it to our garbage man, our mail man, our neighbours, family members saved and unsaved.  This year we didn't get a chance to do that.  It is such a great time of year when people are accepting of gifts when at other times of the year, they may not be so willing to accept a gospel CD.  We would love to serve in a soup kitchen or do gifts for those needy people.  The ways that we can serve the Saviour are many.  We just need to stop thinking about ourselves and focus more on Him.

In closing, please don't think that we are any better than anyone else.  Please don't think we are judging any of you that do presents on Christmas Day. We definitely don't think we are better than anyone else.  We are just trying to keep Christ in our Christmas in what seems to be more of a Christ-less world.  He has given so much for us. Our traditions are still in progress and as we learn and grow in the Lord they may change but for now we are doing what we can with hopes of doing more someday.

As New Year's Day approaches, our girls are really excited about opening their gifts.  I look forward to the New Year and to see what Lord has in store for us.  I hope that throughout the year I can find and take the time to research and prepare our festivities for next December in preparing to celebrate Christ's birth.