Christmas Reflections

I was thinking about some of the posts that I read on your blogs in the last few weeks, and I felt like there was a real goal in our little bloggy community to teach our kids about Christmas in a meaningful way. It seems we have a common desire to find and keep traditions that have more to them than Santa coming down the chimney. So, what did you do? What do you look back on and feel that really communicated something to your kids about the real meaning of Christmas?

For me, it’s the Advent wreath/candles. Our girls got right into the whole thing. The way we did it (and I have no idea if it’s really the ‘right’ way to do it) is that every week we lit the candles and had some Bible stories and songs that related (at least loosely!) to the theme of the week. I have a feeling that some of our choices were somewhat unorthodox, but it sure was fun. For instance, for the week of Joy, we read about the lame man that Peter and John healed. After that we sang the song with the girls ‘walking and leaping and praising God’ as we sang. Good times. It was also so meaningful to me to light the Jesus candle on Christmas morning before M read the story to them. They were looking forward to lighting that candle, and there wasn’t really any struggle to get their attention away from the presents to do that. Probably the very best part was that it gave us so many ways to explain salvation to them. I can’t wait to do it all again.

And, just in case someone out there wants to try having an Advent wreath, let me just say that it doesn’t have to be just perfect to be nice. Our wreath was made out of some red and green sparkly tinsel garland laid on a plate. There were 4 red candles around the outside and a white one in the middle. (We are nothing if not innovative.) You can see it if you scroll down to the picture of L looking at the candles.