A God-Glorifying Christmas?
Disclaimer: I know that some of you do not believe in celebrating Christmas. That is completely okay. I understand where you are coming from, but that is not a conviction the Lord has currently led my husband and I to hold. If you don't believe in celebrating Christmas, please bear with the rest of us and refrain from debating that on this post.
For those of you who do believe in celebrating Christmas...
How are you seeking to celebrate Christmas in a God-glorifying manner?
This is a question my husband and I have been mulling over the past few weeks. I'd love to hear ideas on how you have a Christ-centered Christmas. Is your family doing something special to reach out to those in need? How do you keep Christ the center and focus of this holiday and not get caught up in all the commercialization of it?
For those of you who do believe in celebrating Christmas...
How are you seeking to celebrate Christmas in a God-glorifying manner?
This is a question my husband and I have been mulling over the past few weeks. I'd love to hear ideas on how you have a Christ-centered Christmas. Is your family doing something special to reach out to those in need? How do you keep Christ the center and focus of this holiday and not get caught up in all the commercialization of it?
posted by Crystal Paine at 2:45 PM
13 Comments:
Within my family, we really try to focus on what Christmas, and the meaning of the holiday means to us individually, us as a family, and us in society. Being selfless, charitable, and forgiving was a big part of who Jesus was. Even though my brothers and I have left a church, the teachings we grew up with are still inspirational.
We are having a birthday party for Jesus, complete with ice cream cake. My sons are so little; they barely understand but the seeds are being planted :-)
Since Christmas is on Sunday this year, we will be having church. We're having an 8:00 am service. We want Christ worshipped first. When we get home, the children can open the few presents we got them. They're not getting a lot. Only 2-4 inexpensive toys.
We do want our children to be givers so we participate in different charities at this time of year. And we always drop money in that little red bucket outside of the stores.
I'm really saddened that churches are shutting their doors on Christmas Sunday. Christ really has been taken out of Christmas with some people.
We don't open any Christmas gifts on Christmas day (this is so there is absolutely NO CHANCE for Christmas to even remotely be focused on getting those new things).... that day is set aside completely for Him, so we open them up either Christmas Eve or one gift a day for a week before Christmas.
On Christmas morning, we all gather together and open the day with prayer -- before we do anything else. We also read Christ's birth from Luke. The rest of the day is just spent hanging out as a family and spending some good quality time together. Some time between breakfast and a few hours before dinner, we say the blessing over Jesus's birthday cake that we make for Him every year.
Our girl isn't old enough to really understand about Christmas yet (she's only 2), but we're still planting them seeds. :-D
In preparation we have been talking daily about Jesus and all aspects of the Nativity. We have our advent calendar that we do every day. On Christmas Eve we are going to services with my parents. My brother is singing that night so I'm excited! (He's quite good!) On the actual day we will be out of town at my husband's parents house. We plan on doing a big breakfast, gifts, and then head off to church. My children are quite small so we are keeping it low-key, Christ-centered, and family oriented...if that makes sense. :0)
My husband and I remind our daughters that it is Jesus we are celebrating on Christmas. We try to make clear that His gift is the greatest gift given. We read the birth story and I think that my kids have been able to understand it. We do give gifts, but we are trying to not focus so much on this. We spend alot of time with family, but I am thrilled that this Christmas we will be able to go to our church service on Christmas. I look forward to a more Christ centered day.
We celebrate our own Christmas on Christmas Eve. We go to my parents for Christmas on Christmas day.
We do not do Santa Clause so that is not even an issue. We do read the Birth Story of Jesus in the Bible on Christmas Eve night. We also go to church on Christmas Eve. This year our church is having the same service for Christmas Eve as Christmas Day. So we are going to church on Christmas Eve and then have homechurch at home on Christmas Day.
I also want to start a tradition of collecting nativity sets and set them all over my house. Not sure if dh wants me to do that. I have one so far.
Blessings~
Holly
I commented on my blog how we revamped our Christmas traditions so that the purpose of the celebration was focused on Christ.
http://homesteadherb.blogspot.com/2005/12/advent-christmas.html
Our church started something kind of neat. They handed out big square nails with name tags on them. We wrote our names on the name tags and hand the nails on the Christmas tree. As our family expands the number of nails will increase. This is to signify God's perfect gift to sinners. It is very thought provoking everytime you look at the tree and see a nail hanging there with my name on it. It is a good reminder of why Christ was born.
We are planning on going to church on Christmas day. I saw a recent poll that only 5% of churches are planning to be closed. We will be there just like every other Sunday, unless of course we are sick. I have been sick just about every Christmas.
Other then that we have a very traditional Christmas with lights and presents. I guess we will have to get up early or open them when we get home. Our church service will be earlier this Sunday.
We usually spend the first part of Chrismas Eve at my parents' place having dinner together (traditional French Canadian food as my dad grew up in Quebec) and afterwards we read the Christmas story from one or several of the gospels. At 11 p.m. we go to our church's candlelit Christmas Eve service.
Christmas morning we always have brunch together and open stockings and gifts. The rest of the day is spent together as a family singing carols, preparing dinner, talking to family members who live far away.
Usually our extended family does a gift exchange where you draw one person's name and buy a gift for that person. This year we decided it would be nice to give to someone in need instead. We decided to send money and gift cards to a colleage of my uncle whose home was destroyed in New Orleans and there son was also murdered recently. They are living in a little camper on their front lawn. When you think of the devastation others are suffering it helps to put Christmas and it's commercialism into perspective.
Growing up we didn't have presents on christmas, but we had alot of fun anyway! We hada birthday cake for Jesus, a special apple cake that we didn't ever make all the rest of the year.
Great ideas and encouragement, everyone! Thanks so much for sharing!
I held a Christmas party two weeks before Christmas, where I invited friends, family and neighbours. I asked someone to do a short talk (5mins), and I also had a slot where several people gave thanks for something from their year. It was good to have this spiritual part, both to encourage Christians and share with non-Christians who were there. I also made little cards for everyone, with a Bible verse. I wrote a personal thank you note in most of them. They were attached to little cakes I had wrapped in celophane.
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