Christmas seems bigger every year. Bigger presents. Bigger parties. Bigger trees. Bigger decorations.
Sometimes I just want to hide from it. I want to give gifts only to Jesus. I want to have a simple Christmas. I want to make popcorn garlands and get a penny and a peppermint stick in my stocking like Laura Ingalls.
I don’t want my kids’ eyes as big as saucers when they come down the stairs on Christmas morning. I don’t want them overly tired and cranky from too much Christmas candy and too many Christmas parties.
I want them to know the big deal of Christmas is Jesus. I want to stack up everything that Christmas “requires”: trees, gifts, parties, cards, wrapping and matching outfits and make sure it looks small compared to the gift of Jesus.
When we make a big deal of Jesus by focusing on Him for 24 days, reading His story for an entire month, meditating on His gift to us, we’ll make Him bigger. The big deal of Christmas will become big in the hearts of your children. It will be a big deal that will stay with them their entire lives–making Jesus the Big Deal of their lifetime.
No single time we suffered any “fake drugs” or delay. Our cooperation been favorable so far and we can recommend both the provider and the drug for buy tramadol patients suffering from moderate and moderately severe pains. On the link above you can read all the details about it.
Let’s do it–make Christmas a big deal. Go all out—focusing on Jesus, making His name great and honoring Him this year. I think Truth in the Tinsel is a great way to do this (of course!), but now matter how you celebrate, do it up big!
Each of our kids only get three gifts for Christmas: a need, a want, and a spiritual gift. We read the Christmas story before bed on Christmas Eve and this year we are going to celebrate advent!
I wish we would have instituted the GIVING of the gifts…as in what my daughter gave to my son would actually be handed to him instead of just passing out the gifts and having big piles. I think that would have impressed upon them the feeling of giving and also receiving the gift. I plan to make that change with Grandchildren someday.
We do a Jesse Tree each year. I made the ornaments and each year I wrap them up and put them under a small tree. Every day, one child gets to open up an ornament and place it on the tree while we read a bible story that relates to why we needed Jesus to come to earth. Such a great tradition and the kids look forward to it each year!
I love this! We do 3 gifts, too and I love how it cuts down on the craziness on Christmas morning. (Now the grandparents on the other hand…) 😉
a
Hmmm. That’s a very cool and interesting distinction. I like that!
I have started (the past 2 years, maybe) having my kids make gifts for each other, instead of going shopping and ME buying something for THEM to give. I hope it’s a tradition that continues!
a
I do like the Jesse Tree! It’s really how Truth in the Tinsel came about. I was trying to do the Jesse Tree with my daughter and she was too young for it.
We’ll tackle it one day. And I love how you wrap each ornament!
a
We never give big presents, only what we can afford. The 3 gifts idea seems a wonderful idea to use at home! Thanks!
We do a ‘random acts of kindness’ advent calendar…my kids love it and can’t wait to find out what the RAK is each morning!
Sounds great! I’ll do too…! 🙂
We are planning a birthday party for Jesus and we are thinking in a gift for Jesus… something easy handmade by the kids, I’ll do Truth in the tinsel by the way 🙂
Joa
Love that idea Gayle! What are the ideas you have in your calendar?
We give 3 gifts, too. I loved doing Truth in the Tinsel last year. We do it together with the Jesse Tree.
My kids are 10, 8, and 2.
1. We do Truth in the Tinsel… Seems like we’ve done it their whole lives but I guess this is our 4th year.
2. Each kid takes a turn unwrapping a Christmas bedtime storybook. The book “presents” are kept under the tree, it makes the gift place look “full” all the time and the kids don’t expect it to be more overflowing than that on Christmas morning. 🙂
3. We have instituted “Santa” as a game, not a belief. Our kids get a turn to play Santa on a night leading up to Christmas (we go youngest on the 21st, middle on 22nd, oldest 23rd.) They get to stay up past everyone else to milk and their favorite cookies before they put out their gifts. Even if it’s a paper airplane or a macaroni necklace they have to give a present to everyone so it really that keeps their minds focused on the gifts of others, not themselves. Even though it’s not really anonymous giving, we all pretend it is and say things like “Look what Santa brought me!” while the little one giggles like they’ve tricked us. They do the same to us on Christmas morning with the presents from us; they wink and say that “Santa” brought them just what they wanted.
Cara: I think the Santa idea is so sweet! I love that each kid gets their own night to put out gifts. It makes their giving so important. Love it!
(and yay for 4 years of TNT!!)
a
*We are using Ann Voskamp’s new Christmas devotional book, Unwrapping the Greatest Gift: A Family Celebration of Christmas to read together throughout the month. We don’t do daily activity or treat advent calendars. Adds too much busy to our season. We are just reading Ann’s devotional as our daily advent. It’s a Jesse Tree devotional as well and might dovetail nicely with your TinT, though we personally haven’t done your TinT.
*To keep decorating fun and not stressful, we use simple decorations (mostly nativity ones) and no Santas. We don’t decorate every area of the house. We just focus on a few key areas. We’ve never done Santa. But we talk about him as we’ve learned about him from watching Buck Denver’s Why Do They Call it Christmas? DVD. It covers 8 big questions about Christmas so we watch one question per day and talk about it. I know there is a new companion book to the movie that just came out, but we opted for Ann’s book instead this year.
*We do one “Christmas” activity per week to limit busyness. It’s something like looking at lights, or the town tree lighting, or decorating our own tree. This allows us to enjoy the excitement without going overboard.
*We also do not over indulge in treats in an effort to stay healthy this time of year. Sugar lowers immunity and it’s everywhere this time of year. We do make some Christmas cookies to give as gifts, but save the ones we’ll eat for Christmas Day dessert. The kids only get one candy cane (dye free organic one) in their stockings. We homeschool so we can avoid crazy party sugar fests.
*We try to make our handmade gifts (often a different type of nativity set- we made popsicle stick ones, clothes pin ones, and this year it’s champagne cork ones and river rock ones) in September and October so all of the craftiness is out of the way before Thanksgiving and Christmas. This reduces stress of trying to get stuff crammed in an already full time. This keeps our home more peaceful- a gift in and of itself. It also keeps November fully focused on Thanksgiving and not just as a segue to Christmas. We do Thanksgiving activities daily in November, not just on the holiday.
*We try to have all of our shopping (and even wrapping) done before Black Friday so we are not a part of that frenzy. We also limit gift giving with family so the expense is small.
*Each Christmas we also choose a family project we can all participate in to give a gift to Jesus. Last year we took some of the food money we would have used to feed ourselves and ate more meagerly for December. We shopped with the kids each week with those designated funds to pick out food for the hungry. We put it in a decorated box under the tree marked “Our Gifts to Jesus” throughout the month. Just before Christmas we took the box to a food bank and had the kids present the food.
*Another Family Project: We haven’t been able to afford to give cash to charities that provide wells, chickens, llamas, education, etc. in needy regions around the world, but another project has been to pick a catalog each day from those we received in the mail, and pray for a specific need to be met as an advent activity throughout the month.
*This year we picked a secret family we know is in need with lots of kids. Our kids then cleaned out their closets in September and spiffied up their toys to part with. We found some that are like new so we will wrap them up for this family. We are selling the others and putting that money toward a grocery card. Our kids will then take the cash they’ve earned from selling their stuff and buy the gift card themselves. We plan on sneaking out on Christmas Eve to leave the gifts, grocery card, and a copy of Ann’s Christmas book on their doorstep (much like Saint Nicholas did in giving gifts that met tangible needs in his community), ring the bell and try to escape before being discovered. The kids are super excited about doing this as our gift to Jesus this year.
*Like many others do, we wrap up 25 nativity stories ahead of time to unwrap each night of December. I’ve been collecting them for years and the kids look forward to reading our special Christmas stories at bedtime in December. Getting the wrapping paper at the dollar store makes this very cheap if you already own the books. When I didn’t own so many I arranged holds at the library ahead of time so we had nativity stories from the library at just the right time.
*Lastly, after the kids are in bed on Christmas Eve we lay down a trail of large foam stars from their bedroom to our family nativity set. I found a huge package of stars on clearance at Michael’s Craft Store a few years ago. When they wake up Christmas morning they follow the stars, like the wise men, to Jesus. We pray as a family together at the nativity while placing Jesus in and thank Jesus for coming to rescue us before doing anything else Christmas morning.