Pondering Christmas
Recently we made some great friends and discovered that one of them has a great dislike for Christmas. He does not like the fuss and materialism of Christmas. I can understand the dislike of secular Christmas and what the culture seems to make Christmas all about. We, however, love the entire Christmas season. My hubby shared with our friend the way that we celebrate Christmas and all that we put into the entire season and how we have made Christ the focus where He should be! There is so much symbolism in almost everything we do and even use to decorate during the Christmas season. Our celebration of Christmas goes beyond the Church service and the reading of the Christmas story. We make a point of doing things with a purpose and leading our children to an understanding of the symbolism and reasons for doing all that we do. It brings a focus and a clarity that many lack even during this special time of year. In our home the Christmas season begins shortly after Thanksgiving and ends with Epiphany. One of the many things we do is to celebrate Advent. We have found one particular wreath and liturgy that we like to use for Advent. It is the Jesse Tree Advent Wreath. I posted about this last year with photos, if interested go HERE. Please come back to this post and share what you do special during the Christmas season. How do you seek to glorify God in placing Christ as the focal point?
Related posts:
- Our Advent Wreath
- The Season of Advent Begins
- Merry Christmas
- Spirit Of Christmas Award
- A Glow Stick Christmas
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Posted in Christmas, Family, Pondering, Train Up a Child
December 9th, 2008 at 1:46 am
We agree with your friend and even completely stopped celebrating Christmas as well for a few years. I have posted about what we have come up with as a family, to be able to share Christ with others during this season! We are happy now and it has given us a purpose in what we do as well as complete peace for these past few years. Blessings- Tracy
http://lighthouseacademyhs.wordpress.com/2008/12/05/heart-of-the-matter-friday-meme-9/
December 9th, 2008 at 9:32 am
Every year I try to make sure the kids really get why we have Christmas. Amidst all the fun of the season, I try to keep their focus on Christ. This year, we are reading from an Advent calendar I found online to really bring it to the forefront. Today, when we were reading we were talking about how Christ came so he could be the ultimate sacrifice for our sins and how without Christ we would have to sacrifice a lamb in order to be forgiven. The kids really got it. It helped that the same thing was mentioned during communion on Sunday.
December 9th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
So true, keep repeating what Christmas is all about, keeping showing what Christmas is all about, and everyone around will be able to see it and feel it.
Thought you might like Currclicks free ebook this week. Alaskan cookbook with beautiful pictures. http://www.currclick.com/product_info.php?products_id=25778&it=1
Have a great day. Amanda
December 10th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
One thing that we must all keep in mind is that this is the one time of year when virtually the entire world is focused on one thing…Christmas. It is an incredible opportunity to share the gospel with those who need Christ in their lives. Much of the year the world around us will not listen to nor tolerate a Christian point of view, but this time of year they will admit that Christ is the reason for the holiday and will tolerate your celebration. It is critical that we celebrate the birth of Christ and point the world toward Easter. One cannot exist without the other. Merry Christmas to all.
December 11th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Hi, I wrote a longer entry about Christmas in my blog. Being still childless, we dream about happy kids opening presents under the tree, but also about explaining them what it is really about and why we celebrate. Here in Estonia (the most secular country in Europe!) many non-christian people say that because Christmas is not the “right” birthday of Jesus, it should be a celebration of light and that it has nothing to do with church, but I think that they just want an excuse to be a part of it without leaving their atheist ideas. Anyway, the “Christmas tree business” booms, so maybe some part of the real idea of Christmas gets to them with the traditions they have.
December 12th, 2008 at 3:04 am
We extend the Christmas holiday to celebrate 12th night (Jan. 6) when the wise men came to see the Christ child. We also do an advent study and read many children’s books about the true meaning of Christmas. I have to agree with what DrillerAA said- we need to point to Easter at Christmas. Christ came to die. We have a nine-inch square head nail ornament on our tree which gets a place of prominence on our tree and also gets a lot of discussion. This helps us to remember the true meaning of Christ’s birth. My little ones especially like knocking on the doors of our house on Christmas eve, looking for a room in the inn as we reinact that part of the Christmas story. (Usually we do a Jesse tree but this year, I started too late and we are just making new ornaments for the Jesse tree for next year.) Just some of the ideas we use to keep Christ at the heart of Christmas. (Oh, and every year we bake a cake and decorate it like a present for Christmas day. It’s Jesus’s birthday cake! And we sing Happy Birthday to Him, too!)
December 13th, 2008 at 5:23 am
We also have been doing advent devotions. We’ve been using Ann Hibbard’s book, “Family Celebrations at Christmas”, which works well for young kids, but is still interesting for my 12 year old. (And has extension ideas for the adults and older kids.)
We do practice some traditions that are not related to Christ, (like a candy-strip countdown to Christmas). But we keep talking, keep singing :0), and keep focusing our attention on Jesus.
They “get it” :0)
December 18th, 2008 at 11:55 pm
I’m not sure that we do much out of the norm. I mean, we emphasize the season, and we’re going through Christmas in Bible, but other than that… We’ve never “done Santa” and we try to keep the true meaning.
December 19th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
I’ve been blogging a bit about Christmas these last couple of days so your post hit home. Thanks for sharing!
Blessings,
Rachel