Beyond Presents, Parties, and Santa Sweaters

Christmas just might be my favorite time of year.

I love going to see our city’s Youth Ballet version of The Nutcracker. I love seeing Christmas trees twinkling from front windows and Christmas lights strung up in yards. I love Christmas shopping and Christmas parties and trimming the tree with my family. I love Christmas movies and Christmas music. I love taking the kids to see Santa and wrapping presents (as long as there’s a strong drink involved. In both cases).

As a kid, these things pretty much summed up Christmas for me. Of course, we attended our church’s Christmas Eve service (BORING.) and my mom generally read the King James Version of the birth of Jesus at home afterward (BORING-ER), but Christmas was really all about PRESENTS. And SANTA CLAUS. And. PRESENTS.

But now that I’m an adult, Christmas is, at its core, what it should have been all along– a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. I don’t know what you think about when you hear the name “Jesus,” but I hear the name of a man who has pretty much rocked my world, and I only wish I had known the Jesus I know now back when I was a kid. I wish I’d seen him as the fulfillment of a promise that stretched back thousands of years. I wish I had seen him as a real, living, breathing man with amazing lessons to teach that would change my life, rather than a picture on the cover of my Youth Bible of a wimpy-looking guy in a dress, surrounded by children. There are a few gifts I want to give my children above anything else. Introducing them to my Jesus is one of them.

Last year, I made a valiant effort to start the Jesse Tree tradition with my kids, thanks to Shannon’s careful instructions at Rocks in My Dryer. Essentially, the Jesse Tree is a small tree that represents Christ’s family tree. Starting December 1st, a story from the Old Testament leading up to Christ’s birth is read each night and a corresponding ornament is placed on the tree.

I had bought a small Christmas tree for the kids’ room and we got off to a good start the first few nights, but then our entire house was struck down by Swine Flu– and that was the end of the Jesse Tree. We were so sick last year, in fact, that we barely managed to even get gifts under the tree in time for Christmas.

This year, we tried again.

We are reading the Jesse Tree stories from The Jesus Storybook Bible, which is amazing, and from The Child’s Story Bible, which is also fantastic for the 6-12 set. Through these books, the stories are coming alive, and my 6-year-old is LOVING IT. She’s loving it so much, in fact, that we’ve ended up reading extra stories each night because she always wants to know what’s happened in between the Jesse Tree stories.

I make most of the ornaments and keep it very, very simple. That way, I don’t get stressed out about it.

We’ve also started another tradition- one I saw on a blog last year and now, I can’t find the post. To do it, I bought a life-sized nativity manger last Christmas and some craft store raffia, which I cut into straw. Every week or so, my family draws names of another family member. All week long, we secretly do good deeds for our chosen family member, and each time we do it, we put a little bit of straw in the manger. This is our manger after two weeks.

On Christmas Eve, the manger should be completely lined with straw (and LOTS of good deeds) and ready for baby Jesus. My entire family is really into this one- even 3-year-old Bruiser!

But I’ll be honest- I think I’m getting more out of these two new traditions than anyone else. This year more than any other, I’m really focused on what Christmas is all about. Not only am I loving reading the Bible stories each night, the fact is, right now, I need them. It’s having a huge impact on me to see over and over again that God almost always chooses the most unlikely people to make history and lead his people. I’ll write more about this later, but I struggle with tremendous feelings of unworthiness when it comes to being a Christian. I look around at other Christians and feel like I could never even hope to be like them or be accepted by them. I look in the Bible, though, and read about people who make me feel that anything’s possible. I want my children to learn to do the same- preferably at the age of three rather than 35!

This is our Christmas. Now I want to know about your special winter holiday traditions. What keeps you focused on the meaning of this season for your family?

 

Image via Jonathan Goforth/Flickr