Ideas to Keep Christ the main part of CHRISTmas

Being a parent, I want my little boy to know that Christmas is not about waking up early on Christmas Day, tearing into presents and eating a big yummy meal. No, I want Avery to know that Christmas is about a God, who loved us so much that he put on the clothing of a human and became a baby boy so that he could one day give his life for us and this all started at his birth.

So I asked some Christian moms how they kept Christ central in their lives. I wasn't planning to share this but the ideas were soooooooooooo good that I just had to. Here they are:

J.B. - We have a nativity set (wood) the kids can play with and the kids love it when I get it out.  They help act out the Christmas story with the nativity set.  We do a different scene each night. We also do a share-the-joy night--take a night and go caroling at a nursing home, taking homemade cards with you to give away. The kids love it and so do the older people! You can make cards together on a night before you go out :). We also do a share-the-joy night for our teens at church. They each bring $5 that they earned themselves (can't just ask mom for it) and then we give them certain ages to buy for. We take the van/bus to Wal-Mart, split up in groups and give them 20 minutes to buy presents and be back on the bus. Then we go back to the church, wrap them, get back on the bus and drive to the family's house that the presents were bought for! At the house, they carol and hand out their presents. It is the best attended teen night of the year!

V. W. - We grew up working on a bus route with my dad as the captain.  Every Christmas we would help out at least 10 or more of those families struggling financially by bringing them a ham dinner basket--ham, canned green beans, potatoes, rolls and whatever else! it was so neat to see them light up and to make their Christmas a little better :)

L.J.-  This year, since the kids understand a lot more, we are going to start the tradition of making Jesus a birthday cake. I saw it somewhere and thought that was awesome.

K.K.-  Growing up, we made a point to read Luke 2 on Christmas Eve before bed, and even again before presents on Christmas Day sometimes. Since we've been married, we've found a family in our church who were recently laid off, or just in general, struggling financially, and give a check for them through the church so it's anonymous. Our daughter is only just getting old enough to be aware of things, so it is making me look more for things that she can see us doing. We may wait another year or so before we start this, but I want to start a family tradition where we bake and decorate cookies together and package them up, then go caroling to a few select homes of our church's shut-ins and give them cookies. We have done this before with our singles group, but I can't wait to show our kids the spirit of Christ through that kind of ministry!

L.M. -  I would like to incorporate something (whatever we can do for the year) to show my children it's not all about them, and to instill gratefulness in them. I think that looks like just being the hands and feet of Jesus in some way or another. Doing a meal or gifts to someone in need, Operation Christmas child boxes, buying an officer or soldier a milkshake in a restaurant, etc. I like the birthday party to Jesus, but I feel like He is happier with a gift of service for others. I need to amend that. I don't actually know the spirit of a birthday party for Jesus--who am I to judge? It's all good stuff.

T. W. -  We just moved here, so this is our first year, but there is an amazing (supposedly) live nativity that we are going to see this weekend. It is supposed to be breathtaking and tearful and really depict the journey to Bethlehem; it ends at the cross. I am so excited and hoping this can be a tradition we all look forward to. I'm also hoping, as I bring a couple unsaved mom friends and their families, that they won't just see Jesus as a cute baby in a manger but as the Savior they desperately need :)

A.S - Gave a wonderful article that I will be talking about more next week...Begging for Myrrh