Christmas traditions

November 20, 2008 in Parenting with 4 Comments

What are your Christmas traditions?  I’ve been thinking about what my family’s will be now that we’ve added one more (I had a son about a month ago).  As a Christian father, I long to pass on the faith to my son, and the story of Christmas is the story of faith.  Although change is often a much-needed breath of fresh air, traditions can and should be valued, and I want to craft traditions that help me, my wife, and my son, remember well the great story of Christ’s coming to earth in the form of a man (incarnation).  Is the answer found in painting a picture of a fat man in a red suit that flies across the whole earth and climbs through chimneys and gives kids what they want?  Is that what most honors God?  I’m not necessarily opposed to Santa Claus, but it seems to fall well short of the beauty of Christmas that God intended in the gospels.

I want our family’s traditions to make sense.  I expect a host of questions from my son.  “Why do we put up a Christmas tree?”  “Why do we put ornaments on it?”  “Why do we hang garland?”  “Why do we give gifts?”  “Why do we put fake candles in the windows?”  I’d like to give a more helpful response than, “Because that’s how we did it when I was a child.”  Traditions serve to help us remember.  Exodus 12:26-27 says, “And when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.’”

I am feeling the weight of wanting my family to exalt Christ at Christmas.  I want my traditions to help us achieve this goal.  What kinds of traditions do you and your family do year after year?  Are they helping you to remember the great story of God’s redemption?

Check out this video, and be challenged.

 

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  • Amy Sturdivant

    We have two traditions that we try and do every Christmas.

    We have a Christmas cookie party that started when I was 6years old with my friends and now I do it for my 8year olds friends. We make and decorate Christmas cookies.

    Additionally I sit around the kitchen table with our very best friends who live in NC and we make ornaments for our tree with our children, daddys included. It is so much fun and then you can pull them out every single year.

  • http://www.matthewcostner.com matthew costner

    was about to place that same advent conspiracy youtube on my blog today too! cool site.

  • http://emilydoss.blogspot.com Emily

    We get new ornaments each year to represent the things that happened that year. It’s a fun tradition to remember what was going on in our lives each year and how we’ve grown or changed.

  • http://casadeholmes.blogspot.com Leslie Holmes

    When Benji and I first got married, we decided then to start carving out our own christmas traditions. We wanted to have some things in place early to avoid stress later as our family would be growing. We refuse to go anywhere on Christmas day, knowing it would disappoint his family. We stay at home and enjoy every minute of that family time, complete with french toast, rice krispy sqaures, sausage balls and leftovers from the large family dinner a few days prior.
    We will not be teaching our son about Santa, because we do not want to convince him to believe in someone who he can not see that wants to give him good things, then later tell him that was a lie but we still want him to belive in Jesus, whom he can not see and wants to give him good things.
    We only exchange about 3 presents with eachother.
    We do have the tradition of opening one present Christmas Eve, carrying on a tradition my family did growing up.
    Both Benji and I were raised believing Santa and recieving many gifts, so the traditions we have chosen are different than how we were raised and we are carving out our own without parental example. That mirrors our entire adult life and marriage, as we refuse to follow the footsteps of our parents.