Tips On Making Christmas About Christ
Making Christmas About Christ
It takes intentionality and focus to make Jesus the centerpiece of Christmas.
The pressure or determination to buy gifts easily becomes the thing we are consumed with.
It’s not unusual to have a very long shopping list, between presents for immediate family, co-workers, extended family, friends, and the less fortunate.
If Jesus is the reason for the season, why is He actually a mere afterthought in December?
This is a question many well-meaning Christians ask themselves every year. Simply putting up a nativity and reading the Christmas story in Luke chapter 2 is too little in the continuous flurry of constant activity. Adopting some new traditions can help.
Jesus is the Reason for the Season
Christmas is about the miraculous birth of Jesus, not the magic of Santa and his toy workshop.
We Christian parents know that Jesus is the greatest gift any of us could ever receive.
Christmas is a special time to recognize His earthshakingly significant birth, even though it’s widely known among scholars that it was probably in a warm month when Jesus was actually born.
The “Christmas spirit” is a beautiful thing, and all of the joy and giving provide a tiny hint at the magnitude of the gift God gave us through the birth and ultimate death and resurrection of His Son.
The season deserves to feel “magical,” and the following are ideas to shift the wonder toward what happened in Bethlehem under a bright star:
- A Christian version of Elf on the Shelf is The Shepherd on the Search. If you’re like a lot of parents, you’re creeped out by the elf, anyway. Invest in the Shepherd, and the family can participate in the amazing experience the shepherds had that wondrous night, all the way to the moment when they saw the newborn Messiah with their own eyes.
- Hang a white Christmas stocking in a prominent place. Throughout December, focus on acts of kindness and giving, saying prayers, and spending time in God’s Word and in His presence. Either symbolically or written on notes, place the deeds and experiences in Jesus’ stocking, as gifts for His birthday.
- Throughout the months leading up to Christmas, get everyone in the family involved with identifying families who could use an extra blessing. It could be a single mother and her children, a lonely person at a nursing home, or anyone else you may learn about who is in need. During 12 days of Christmas, each day give one of the selected individuals or groups an anonymous gift, and share the Christ-centered Christmas story on an attached card. An alternative idea is to share homemade cookies with a different neighbor each day, Jesus story included.
- Make a tiny manger for a nativity scene in your home. Whenever someone in the family does something Christ-like in December, cut a piece of hay and place it in the manger. Strive to make sure the manger is filled and cushioned by the time baby Jesus arrives on Christmas Day.
Make it a very Jesus-y Christmas!
