Traditions are such an integral part of the Christmas season. From decorating the Christmas tree, to joining together to celebrate Christ with a Christmas Eve service, this season is full of seasonal activities. Our traditions are what make the Christmas season memorable, no matter how small they may seem. We encourage you to think about the activities you do each year and to make sure that you build in the time to do them. When you find things to do year after year, you’ll be surprised how much everyone grows to love it. Your kids will grow up, but those traditions will still be important to them—they may not ever want to change them!
Many of us have a relatively easy time figuring out a handful of fun traditions to do each Christmas season, but what are some traditions you can include that direct your thoughts back to Christ? This may be especially important to you if you have a young family. How can you, as a family, be consistently reminding yourselves and your kids about the true reasons we celebrate Christmas? Here at Abide Ministries, we have several veteran tradition-discoverers, and we would love to share some of their ideas with you. If this sparks your interest, please continue reading!
Advent
Those of us who have been in the church for a long time are very familiar with the idea of advent. But what are some ways we can go through advent with our children?
Some ideas that you can incorporate for advent include lighting the advent candles as a family, studying memory verses, and learning Christmas carols as a family. There are many resources out there for finding verses that correlate with advent. You may choose one to memorize as a family, or you may read through a new one each night. The idea is to come together as a family each night of December leading up to Christmas and take time to abide in the scriptures of His coming. This allows you to instill the true meaning of Christmas into your children and set aside time to discuss it. You can incorporate a candle lighting to add an element of specialness and action to this dedicated time of scripture reading. You could also take this time to learn Christmas carols with your children. There are many ways you could make this advent time unique to your family. Take the time to ponder what you might like to do and figure out what God has for your family in the advent season.
Jesse Tree
Linda Case, one of the founders of Abide Ministries, is a staunch advocate of the Jesse Tree. This tradition builds in time to go through the story of Christ with your children, not just the story found in Luke, but the whole story of God’s people from Adam and Eve through the restoration we find in Christ. Each ornament included on the Jesse Tree represents a part of the lineage of Christ, meaning that over the 24 days of Advent, you can learn about the story of the Bible as a family, and how all of it is leading up to the arrival of our Savior.
Prayer Stocking
Another idea from Linda Case is to create a way to incorporate prayer into your Christmas season. She does this by adding another stocking to their collection with Jesus’ name on it. At the start of the advent season, they will each put their name on a card and place it in Jesus’ stocking, and on Christmas, each person will draw a name from the stocking. Their job is to then write out whatever they think God would like them to share with that person. This can include how they saw that person grow, how they saw Jesus work in that person, or prayers for their upcoming year.
Blessing Tree
An idea from one of our retreat leaders’ family is to create what they call the “Blessing tree”. Each year, the family comes together to discuss the blessings God gave them that year. From those blessings, they choose the most impactful one and create an ornament. In your family, you might order an ornament that represents this blessing, or perhaps you come together to create one. Over time, you end up with a tree full of the blessings you have received over the years and are reminded of those may blessings each Christmas.
We hope you have been inspired by these ideas and are ready to tackle Christmas traditions for your family. Each family is unique, so take the time to think through what would best suit your family and what would help each of you to learn and reflect on the coming of our Savior.
If you have any questions for us, please don’t hesitate to reach out at https://abideministries.com/contact-us/.
Merry Christmas!
