Keeping Christ in Christmas

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, 
Mighty God,
Everlasting Father,
Prince of Peace.
Isaiah 9:6

Rob hardly ever (ok, well, never) writes or contributes to a blog post. But with the Christmas season here, we have been talking a lot about Christmas traditions. So we sat down together and started writing...

Last week, I (Mary Beth) went to a friend's house for a Sky Mom's gathering. Sky Mom's is a ministry of Sky Ranch Christian Camp, where moms get together in someone's home to fellowship and have a discussion on an aspect of parenting. The topic last week was, "Keeping Christ in Christmas." Rob and I have talked over the years of our marriage about what we want Christmas to look like in our home. Here are some of the things that we already do and hope to do in the coming years.

To us as Christians, Christmas is the glorious celebration of the birth of our Lord and Savior. We want this to be the sole purpose that is reflected in our home on Christmas. We want our children to have a personal relationship with Christ, asking Him into their hearts, and in return having the Holy Spirit live inside them and the promise of eternal salvation. And we want them to realize that all of this is possible because Jesus was sent by God, born into this world, lived a perfect life, died on the cross for our sins, and rose from the dead. Christmas is about Christ.

1. Since Christmas is Jesus' birthday, we will bake Him a birthday cake and sing Him happy birthday. No birthday is complete without a cake in our house :)

2. I tend to get carried away with toys and presents. Part of the reason I have been prone to do so is because we do not usually buy toys and gifts for each other throughout the year. However, in order to take the focus off receiving gifts, we are choosing to give each person in our home three gifts each, just as Jesus received three gifts from the wise men.

3. We go as a family to Christmas Eve worship service and then have a big dinner together. A while back, Rob decided he wanted Christmas Eve dinner to consist of steak and potatoes, which sounds perfect to me! Then we will read The Christmas Story. Rob grew up reading the Cajun Night Before Christmas, so we would like to read that one as well.

4. Growing up, my mom had a little rule about the nativity. She did not let us put Jesus in the manger until Christmas morning. The anticipation killed me as a little kid and then on Christmas morning, it was always so exciting to get to put the little baby Jesus between Joseph and Mary, with all the animals surrounding them. This is something we will continue to do, making it a big deal with oue children about getting to move Jesus into the nativity!

5. In front of all the other presents under the tree, one will stand out. It is an empty box, wrapped in white. Tied with a red ribbon and some greenery. It will be used year after year, never opened, always admired. It is wrapped in white to represent the sinless life He lived. It is tied in red to show the blood He shed for us. It is empty because the tomb was empty on the third day. It is garnished with greenery to show the new life He gives us through Him.

6. Every Christmas season growing up, I loved to choose a child of the Angel tree and go shopping for him or her. I liked to imagine what the child would feel when they opened the presents they had wanted so badly, but that their parents would not be able to provide for them. In college and when we first got married, we continued to do this. I can't wait to share this tradition with our children, each allowing them to choose a child to buy for.

7. On Christmas morning, we want to spend time as a family in prayer. Then we would like to open our stockings and eat a big breakfast all together. Finally, we open gifts - taking turns, so that we can enjoy seeing what other's gave and received. We also love having a fire in the fireplace and Christmas music on!

8. Growing up, my mom kept all the Christmas books in a basket on the fireplace! I loved having tons to choose from during the month of the December. An idea I got from someone in yesterdays get-together was to wrap 25 Christmas books (the same ones each year), and have the kids open one a day during December. On that day, you get to read the Christmas story that you unwrapped!

We can't wait to share Christmas with Lorelei this year. Last year she was just three months old so she slept through Christmas morning.

What are your Christmas traditions?