Traditions Build Strong Families: 50 Ways to Celebrate Christmas
Join me for a story from our first year living in Japan. I wrote this post for Planting Roots: Strength to Thrive in Military Life, but the content can apply to every family!
We may be wearing flip-flops and eating with chop-sticks, but it’s still Christmas!
“I miss Virginia—my friends and our house.” Seems like I heard this comment sighed from the lips of one of my children every few days.
It is 2007 and our family is still adjusting to life in Japan.
The weather is humid and unseasonably warm for December, even for Okinawa. Though we are excited to be living in a different country, the reality of the transition isn’t easy.
It doesn’t feel like Christmas, but the calendar begins the countdown of December days. My ten-year-old bursts through the front door with a wail, “Mom, I heard they are not getting any Christmas trees at the store on base this Christmas! Something happened to the shipment!”
Normally this news would not be a big deal, but this year is different.
There’s no place like home.
This year we are still getting settled in unfamiliar territory, and this year Dad is deploying right after Christmas. With a 4,000-pound weight limit for household goods, Christmas decorations didn’t make the packing list. We assumed we could buy a tree in Japan.
The ache of unfamiliarity hangs heavy. This is our first move with teenagers who have an iron grip on their friends “back home.” Our cement-block-typhoon-ready base house doesn’t yet look or feel like home. Not having a Christmas tree isn’t going to help anyone feel we are “home” for the holidays.
A few days later, my friend Cathy asks my girl, “What do you want for Christmas?”
My heart sinks as my daughter responds with a telltale tremor in her voice, “All I want is a Christmas tree.”
I worry about how to make Christmas special in a new place so far from family. Prayerfully I ask God, “Please help my kids get settled. How can I make this place feel like home this Christmas?”
Celebrating Christmas in New Places
[tweetthis]The heart of Christmas is not in the decorations and festivities.[/tweetthis] Yet there is a certain feel to the atmosphere and ambiance that we have become accustomed to. Balmy beach days don’t feel like Christmas when we are used to the crisp, cold air of Virginia. My kids lament Facebook posts showing it is already snowing “back home,” even as we are heading to the beach for the afternoon.
It just doesn’t seem like Christmas…
The cherished rituals of celebrating Christmas are not limited to decorations or addresses. Even before Christmas arrives, the familiar routines of baking cookies and practicing for the school concerts are getting us in a more positive outlook.
I talk with my kids about how Christmas will be a little different this year, “but we can enjoy exploring new places and customs.” Sipping hot cocoa one afternoon, my youngest is cutting out snowflakes as we chat about the true meaning of Christmas.
I think I’m making headway with the whole Christmas-in-a-new-place thing.
“The baby Jesus is the most important thing about Christmas,” this sweet one chirps as she snips bits of white paper that litter the floor.
“But I still want a Christmas tree.”
“It won’t feel Christmas-y without one.”
I take a deep breath and put on my peppiest Mom voice, “We don’t need a tree, we will still celebrate Christmas with many of our family traditions we enjoy each year. Maybe you don’t feel like this place is home yet, but we can make a home for Christ in our hearts wherever we go.”
[tweetthis]Traditions help build strong families.[/tweetthis]
As December days pass, each one bringing us closer to Christmas, we enjoy many of the things we usually do at Christmas—some festive and others sacred.
Until this move, I have never considered the power of family traditions to help create continuity in the midst of changes and transitions of life.
Read the rest of the story and a practical list of 50 ways to celebrate Christmas here.
Christmas comes in the midst of life as it is. This particular Christmas for our family was a blessing despite the adjustments we all faced. The next year, 2008, I faced a much more significant challenge. If you are grieving loss this year, I hope this post will encourage you.
What unexpected blessings have you found when your face challenges at Christmas? How have traditions strengthened your family?
Subscribe to get Ginger’s emails and receive a free printable of verses and prayers for Christmas.
How to Create a Christmas Memory Book of Faith
In this post I’m sharing one of my favorite Christmas craft projects I’ve made for my family. Start a Christmas memory book of faith, a small photo album or scrapbook dedicated to family Christmas memories. Add a few pictures, Bible verses, or memories each year! This family Christmas scrapbook also makes a very special gift.
Too much Christmas activity can turn festive into frantic all too quickly. Good intentions pile up as we shop for gifts, decorate the house, enjoy special events, and work on all the details that add that special touch to Christmas.
The joy of the Christmas season beckons and we don’t want to miss a single memory to be made with family and friends. But at the same time, we don’t want to brush past the true meaning of Christmas on our way out the door to the next event.
How do we keep faith from fading into the background, overshadowed by preparations and festivities? I’m learning to be intentional about creating space to keep Christ the center of Christmas in the way our family celebrates Christmas.
Though we have many fun traditions like the tree, cookies, and the Grab Bag (a family activity), my favorite traditions keep our focus on faith and family.
[tweetthis hidden_hashtags=”#Christmasactivities #faith”]Begin a new tradition of keeping a Christmas memory book of faith.[/tweetthis]
How to create a Christmas memory book of faith:
One simple and meaningful tradition involves creating or adding to a scrapbook or journal devoted to Christmas. I keep the focus on faith and family, but you can also incorporate any aspect of your family Christmas season. Each year collect a few photos, verses, or devotional thoughts in your book. Add a few faith memories each year, creating a special family book of memories and inspiration.
There are many possibilities and variations in making your family Christmas scrapbook. The family can work together to create one book or you can make a small book for family members. You can be crafty with paper and decorations. I keep mine simple, using a photo album and some ribbon to decorate the cover. My adult children love having their own small Christmas photo album to remember sweet Christmas memories through the years.
Incorporate a few of these ideas in your Christmas memory book:
Photos Ideas for a Christmas Scrapbook:
A family Christmas Eve picture
Decorating the tree
Making a gift or craft
Lighting advent candles
Giving a gift
A service project
Reading the Christmas story
Christmas photos of parents or grandparents growing up
A first Christmas photo for each child
Faith Ideas for a Christmas Memory Book:
Write a Christmas prayer each year
Make a Gratitude List of blessings from the year
Write a letter to Jesus
Write a note to your family
Write a prayer for each person for the coming year
Give a gift of a prayer verse for each family member
Highlight one special achievement, growth, or victory for each person in the family
Choose a Christmas verse each year
Let each child write an entry (could cover any of the above)
Get a free printable with verses and prayers for your family
Memories to Include in a Christmas Photo Album:
Add the family Christmas card or photo each year
Memorabilia from a special Christmas event
Let kids add small drawings of a scene from the Christmas story
Kid drawings of a favorite Christmas memory
Photos of child’s artwork
Photo of a homemade gift given
Invite special guests to write a brief note
Basic Supplies to Make a Christmas Memory Book:
Blank book of some kind–a journal, sketchbook, or scrapbook of a preferred size.
Photos and memorabilia
Craft paper or index cards
Adhesive
Pens, markers, colored pencils, crayons (as desired)
Optional Embellishments for Your Christmas Scrapbook:
Stickers
Stamps
Ribbon
Washi tape
Gift tags
Enjoy making this Christmas scrapbook that includes family traditions, special memories, and meaningful prayers or Bible verses for a treasure you and your family will enjoy for years to come.
How do you keep faith a special part of Christmas with your family? Share you ideas in the comments, I’d love to hear from you!
The Christmas Grab Bag: A Fun Family Activity
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When Love Runs on Empty
We love, because He first loved us.
If you drive a car without filling the gas tank, eventually you will run out of gas. No brainer, right?
Gas tanks are simple. They require energy in order to function. Watch the gas gauge and you can see when the tank is nearing empty. It’s time to stop and fill the tank. We know this…or if we arent’ paying attention, we discover it when we’re stranded on the side of the road.
Fueling our souls isn’t quite so straightforward, yet hearts need love just as cars require gasoline. We pour time and energy into relationships, service, and work, giving to others. When we try to give what we neglect to receive, it doesn’t take long to find ourselves stranded on detours of disappointment, bitterness, or resentment.
Love one another, even as I have loved you…
Our greatest need.
To be loved and accepted is a deep need of the human heart. We are created to enjoy relationship with both God and men, and love is the need that most satisfies our restless hearts. This new command that Christ gives in the intimacy of the last supper, embraces both the need and the supply.
The first time the phrase, “love one another” is used, Jesus adds a layer of intimacy to the previous command, “love your neighbor as yourself.” Here in the quiet of the upper room, in the last intimate moments with his disciples, he emphasizes the vital importance of loving one another. In fact, Jesus repeats the command to love one another five times on this last night before the crucifixion.
[tweetthis]Love from our brothers and sisters is Christ is a true source of love to meet our needs.[/tweetthis]
Love one another.
The way Jesus has stated this command makes it clear that this is not a one-sided command. As we love one another, no one is left out, no one isolated. Too often we love some, but not others. When we all are faithful to love one another, there is plenty to go around.
Even as I have loved you…
The most important supply that fills our need for love is the love of Christ.
Even as.
I have loved you.
Love for one another doesn’t come always come easy. There are situations and relationships that challenge our ability to love others. When we try to love others from our own resources, we soon run out of steam.
[tweetthis]In reality, the how-to love others is a receiving grace–to receive the love of Christ.[/tweetthis]
We love because He first loved us.
In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 1 John 4:10-11
Without love, obedience becomes legalism and religiosity. Without love service is meaningless, teaching is noise, and all our efforts are tied to the earth. Even the feat of moving mountains by faith is meaningless without love (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
We may think our love blazes a trail through the darkest hours and most difficult relationships, but our love is tied to self without the life-giving love of Christ.
How easy it is to live the trying life of trying to obey God with our own resources. We often teeter between not loving others well with the agape-heart of Christ, or we love them above God. These are the challenges we face when we don’t continually receive God’s love that frees us from the selfish ways of our independent hearts.
Only as we receive and live-abide-dwell in Christ’s love for us can we truly love one another, free from the self-motivations of our flesh.
Oh yes…even as I have love you. This is the power that fuels our ability and desire to love one another.
In the book of John, love is mentioned more times than any other book in the Bible. 39 times God highlights the importance of love. (You can click the link to see all the love verses in John.)
My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. John 15:8-10
In this vital commandment, Christ reveals our deepest need, highest goal, and greatest gift.
Last Words on Love Are Not to Be Forgotten
My face flushed with shame. “I can’t sit across the table and pretend this never happened,” a friend recently admitted.
I have hurt a valued friend. I never intended to alienate my friend, but now there is misunderstanding and resentment where friendship used to be. It is partially my fault. I have neglected their concerns, presuming everything is okay beneath pleasant smiles that mask resentments hiding in silence.
The problem is silent no longer and the discord opens a thin, hurting place in my heart. Guilt leans over my shoulder, whispering, “Who do you think you are? You have no business, no right, to write about loving others.”
I read this verse and squirm at the times I’ve blown it. I begin to tap out words about love on this keyboard and feel a bit like a child playing dress up.
I cannot write these words from a perspective of giving advice, for loving others has hard moments and I fail frequently.
Jesus could have talked about many things on this last evening with the disciples. They could have spent the time reminiscing the many stories they had lived together. He could have explained in great detail what was about to happen. He could have reviewed three years of teaching.
But last moments are for the heart and Christ leaves his disciples with one last, powerful lesson on love.
Moments before, He has washed the feet of his students, turning social norms upside down. With the power of example, Christ shows his friends the importance of serving one another with humility.
[tweetthis]Heart trumps position in God’s economy.[/tweetthis]
A new commandment–from the position of a servant, hands wet with the dirty water, Jesus opens a fresh perspective on a familiar topic. A commandment is not an option, suggestion, or choice. These are words to be obeyed. Words to be lived.
Why does Jesus close out his time on earth, his last peaceful moments of friendship, emphasizing the importance of loving one another? These are the last moments before the world will rise against him with the harsh words chanted by frenzied crowds, “Crucify him, crucify him!”
When we dig beneath the soil of our ambitions, our greatest need and our deepest struggle is to love and be loved. “Love me,” is the cry of every heart. “Am I loved? Am I loveable? Am I worth loving?” is the question that hides in every motivation, desire, and conflict.
Why this lesson on love?
Because love is hard and love is necessary. Like oxygen, we can’t live without it.
Because love is where life is lived, salvation worked out, and victory won.
Because loving God and loving one another is the one foundation we cannot do without.
Without love, obedience hardens into legalism, performance, and religiosity. Without love, service is meaningless, teaching becomes noise, and faith misses the point.
[tweetthis hidden_hashtags=”#loveoneanother”]Without love we are bankrupt souls and our greatest work turns to dust in the light of eternity. [/tweetthis]
Really, what else is there to talk about?
A picture of God’s heart
Through Christ, God shows us the core of his heart and what is most important to him.
When it comes to loving others, we teeter between not loving others well or loving them over and above loving God. Either way, we stumble with unsteady steps.
This side of heaven we are going to struggle to love God and love one another.
“He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:6
Maybe you are ready to wring your hands and shake your head in discouragement thinking, “it’s going to take a lifetime to learn to love God’s way.”
[tweetthis]What happens when we accept the fact that we cannot love and live God’s way on our own?[/tweetthis] Look at it from a different perspective–he is never done, never gives up on us. God will keep working in us and throughout our lives He will teach and train, convict and comfort, convince and empower us to keep growing step by step and day by day.
God loves with no limits or quotas. Every single day we have a fresh opportunity to lay aside the un-love-liness of our flesh, our do-it-myself-please-myself striving to feel loved and get our way.
How often have we tried to live as Christ’s disciple, trying to love others better?
Trying to do the right thing.
Trying to love God and do all the doing.
The try-hard life depends on our own resources. We cannot simply improve our behavior and do better, for matters of the heart will not be constrained to human effort.
Before we can love one another, we must begin with these words…
…even as I have loved you.
As I remember my own struggles to love and be loved, it is easy to forget love begins with God. It is only in the context of God’s love that my love has any hope of being real and true.
We love, because He first loved us.
This is the third post in a series on John 13. You can read the first two posts here:
Five Powerful Truths About Discipleship to Embrace Today
Knowing + Doing = Blessing
We sat down at the table, the steam rising from bowls of homemade soup. I looked across the table at my friend, a mom of four children with a world of experience. Pregnant with my first child, I was grateful for the time to learn about this mothering role. I had no clue how to be a parent.
I could barely take care of myself.
Lyn spent many lunches with me. Watching her care for children and manage a home was a living education I could have never learned from a book.
There is great power in example, being in the moment and watching firsthand.
If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you…If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. John 13:14-15, 17
The big IF.
Knowing and doing are two completely separate states. You cannot DO without the KNOWING, but it is all too easy to KNOW and neglect the DOING.
Setting an example of humble service, Christ instructs his disciples on the importance of washing one another’s feet. If you know…this knowing is a seeing, experiential thing. Perceive, notice, discern, discover, pay attention are a few other traits of this word.
KNOW +DO= BLESSING
Easy, right?
The problem of IF
Knowing and doing are not a given. The privilege of choice is a crucial part of obedience. Following Christ and obeying His word is always a choice.
If is a word of possibilities and choices. It is also the gap between the knowing and the blessing, isn’t it?
Knowing is not enough by itself. You can’t know yourself into heaven, and you can’t know yourself into caring for others.
[tweetthis]Knowing is nearly a dead thing, having no power to produce life or motivate love. #applyGodsWord[/tweetthis]
It is the doing that changes everything.
A little later on this same evening of the Last Supper, Jesus explains more about this blessing that comes with obedience:
Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” John 14:21
Knowing AND doing brings the blessing of deeper intimacy with Christ.
This may seem just a little too basic.
We know we are blessed when we obey Christ’s commandments, but knowing doesn’t have the power to move our stubborn hearts to action. Somewhere between knowing and doing, we can run into a world of problems.
This is a very real issue in today’s information-junkie culture. We skim and scan incredible amounts of information. We have more Bible study material and more Christian books, talks, videos…more information than any other generation in all of history.
Yet how many times have we walked out of church, already forgetting the meaning of the sermon? Have you looked at a Bible study you completed a year ago, straining to remember specific truths you learned? I have.
This is our need for discipleship, to learn by seeing and living life together. [tweetthis]It is only in the doing that the knowing sticks. #applyGodsWord[/tweetthis] Embrace the value of taking shaky steps together for discipleship is relational. In the community of discipleship, we create a culture of intentionality and authentic obedience.
Here are a few ideas that help me move from KNOWING to DOING:
Try these Action Starters
Ask a question
Call a friend
Choose patience
Confess a sin
Create a list
Do a good deed
Keep Going
Evaluate a problem
Explore an idea
Forgive someone
Which one of these could you try today? What would you add to this list? Leave a comment and join the conversation.
Five Powerful Truths About Discipleship to Embrace Today
Don’t reduce discipleship to a dry concept stuffed tight with information that withers unused on the back shelves of our lives.
There is life to be lived well in the reality of being a disciple. God wants to teach and train us how to live and love with joy and authenticity.
Discipleship is relational.
You see, here’s the plain, hard truth…we never outgrow our need to keep learning to love. And this is the heart of discipleship nestled into the divine lap of relationship.
Where there is life to be lived and people to be loved, discipleship has the power to change lives and invite others along for the ride.
As long as we struggle to love God and love others, as long as we hold onto the voracious hunger for significance gained through self-striving–we need discipleship.
…………………………………………………………………………………………….
Evening settles as men gather around a table for dinner. They do not yet know these are last moments carved out of time to have one final lesson with the Master.
When Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. John 13:3
[tweetthis]Discipleship begins and ends with loving others.[/tweetthis]
It is a time of sharing love and enjoying time together—this Jesus kind of love sticks to the end. It doesn’t skitter away when the hard hours arrive, for God’s love doesn’t end and never fails.
Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God… John 13:3
Secure in his identity and purpose, Jesus holds the power and authority of God in his hands. Anything He could need or want is at his disposal. So what he does next is radical and completely unexpected.
Discipleship should never be boring and expected.
He “rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. John 13:4-5
In our make-it or break-it world, a basin of dirty wash water and a gritty towel stand stark in contrast against the “all things” Jesus holds in his hands. Willingly he places himself in the position of servant, the one with the most menial of tasks–to wash the feet filthy with the dust of the road and the sludge of life.
Jesus gets up from the table, leaving the comfort of a good meal as he purposefully lowers his position.
Discipleship is intentional.
Active and involved, discipleship doesn’t shy away from the mess and the sin. [tweetthis hidden_hashtags=”#discipleship”]You can’t sit back and do your own thing if you are going to help others grow closer to God.[/tweetthis]
Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you. John 13:12-15
Washing filth from feet, these are the actions of God as he demonstrates one last lesson on the wonder of love. Example becomes the tool–learning in the living, actions bring words to life and we will never be the same.
Knowing the moment of his betrayal by one of his own is set in motion, still Jesus washes feet that walk across the heartache and trouble of this world gaping wide with sin.
Discipleship serves with humility.
The example, the position and orientation from which Christ gives his last instructions cannot be separated from the lesson about loving God and others.
- When it comes to discipling, we cannot teach from a removed, lofty position, with an I’ve already got this attitude.
- We get up from the table and get down on the floor. We must be in the midst of living out the lessons—showing by example that comes alongside rather than stands over.
- There is no preaching in this moment. Isn’t it easy to preach and teach and lecture on what we know, pointing out what they should do? We must resist pushing standards down on people, setting rules and enforcing consequences. Our broken world works like this, sometimes even in the church.
- When we live the example, there is an authenticity that doesn’t come from being the experienced one or the expert. It is the influence of sharing and practicing what we’ve learned right in the work and mess of life.
What we do is far more powerful than what we say.
We cannot teach God’s children from a position of serve me or an attitude of laziness. We can’t disciple from the stance of wearing success and experience like a badge of authority and honor.
Jesus teaches his most powerful lesson from a position of extreme humility and so should we.
Trusting God: A Guest Post
. In God We Trust “In God We Trust.” It says it right on the dollar bill. But what about those times in our lives when we desperately need answers and can’t find them? Or when we are scared to do what we think God is calling us...
