I love holiday traditions. I love being a part of them. I especially love making up new ones now that I'm a parent.
So far, our only Christmas tradition has been putting on our PJ's, popping in a Christmas CD, and driving around town after dark to look at Christmas lights. This year though I want to do a whole lot more.
The inspiration came from this month's Friend magazine. A Primary had each child write a "gift for Jesus" on a paper angel, which was then used to decorate the ward Christmas tree. I thought this was a *wonderful* idea! If I can find a store that sells them, I'm going to buy a bunch of paper angels to decorate our tree with this year, and each evening I'm going to write things I "caught" the kids doing each day (like being helpful, or putting things away without being asked) on the angels, and tell them how happy it makes Jesus to see us being kind and keeping the commandments. At the same time we'll open the next little door in our (soon to be purchased) Advent calendar and eat the chocolate inside, and read a little bit more of the Christmas Story (a child-friendly version) and then maybe watch Luke 2 or Joy to the World on Christmas Eve before going out to look at the Christmas lights.
I think this will be a great tradition to keep the true meaning of Christmas alive in our home, and I really hope we can carry it out. We don't really push the Santa thing (although my kids know about him, we haven't taught them to "believe" in him, they don't write him letters, and there are no gifts under the tree "from Santa"), and most of our holiday music is of the sacred variety, but we haven't really found much (or done much, to be honest) to present what the holiday is really about to our children. I'm hoping to change that this year. I may try to find a book about the "real" Santa Claus though. I'm sure the kids are going to catch on to the Santa hoopla pretty soon, and I'd like them to know about the real person he's based off of, and how he showed his love for the Savior by being so kind to children. He really was a remarkable person (from what I've read).
I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!!
In other news, Patrick is cruising! Will he be walking by Christmas? Heaven help us if he is! :op
Stumped
1 week ago
Those are great ideas! What do you use to tell the 'child friendly' version of the Christmas story? I'm looking for something like advent stories for my kids.
ReplyDeleteAnother one you might like is that every year a friend of mine puts a present under the tree. It's from Jesus to us. And each year her husband puts in a verse that he thinks describes the kids or would inspire them. And that year the children learn all about it and memorize it. Then the next Christmas they talk about how it helped them that year (it might be something for later but it's cool too)
~Mir