Christmas Traditions in the Chaos

Christmas Traditions in the Chaos

It's December 19th as I sit here typing this.  It's hard to believe Christmas will be over in a week.  I have so much to do in these next few days and so much I want to do and so little time to do it all or really even soak it in and enjoy it.   The only reason I even have time to do this today is because I had to take a day off to keep my youngest kiddo because my mom who normally keeps him hasn't been feeling well.  So here I am at home on a Tuesday the week before Christmas.  I should be writing Christmas cards since I just got the corrected envelopes in the mail yesterday.  I should also be wrapping the piles of presents I haven't gotten to.  I should probably be doing the laundry and cleaning and all the other things that have been neglected lately, but I am determined to write about Christmas before Christmas is actually over, which will be in a blink.  This is probably the only chance I'll get, so here goes.

Christmas season is my favorite, and yet every single year, it's the same struggle.  It's the busiest season for my family, and this year is even busier.  We're busy with so much stuff, but it's all good stuff.  If you didn't know, my husband is a high school basketball coach, and December is when the basketball season officially gets up and running.  We had a home game last night, in fact.  My daughter, Jurnee, is also cheering this year for her middle school, and our girls' team is undefeated, so she actually has a game to cheer at tonight.  In between their games, my middle kiddo, Cavel, just had little league basketball tryouts last Saturday.  Thankfully their season doesn't officially start until after Christmas.  As a middle school teacher, we also have a Parent Night tonight.  Last week, my culinary students cooked chili dinners for a band fundraiser two nights, and I didn't leave school until after 8 o'clock those nights.  Jurnee has also decided to try out for volleyball this year, so add volleyball conditioning to the mix.  There's also church and serving in PreK for me and Youth Group for Aaron and D-Group and Christmas parties and gatherings. I don't know where I'm supposed to be most days or when I'm supposed to be there, lol.  Was I supposed to wear a Christmas sweater?  Bring a dish?  White Elephant Gift?  Do we have a babysitter lined up?  Agh!  All good things... but even too much of a good thing isn't a good thing sometimes.

Even in the midst of the chaos, I'm trying to build my Amazon Affiliate business, so there are Amazon links throughout this blog that are ads and I make a small commission off your purchases.  There are also a few links that I don't make anything off of but just want to share with you.  These are all things we really love, but I want to tell you that up front, and also tell you that isn't why I'm writing this.  I genuinely love Christmas traditions and want to share them with you.  In spite of how hectic things are, I squeeze them in when I can!  We do Santa and Elf on the Shelf, and we have "Elf Night" where we watch the movie Elf and eat spaghetti and drink coke from glass bottles (a tradition I learned from my friend, Alissa).  We also play fun Christmas games, like Christmas-Opoly and Santa, Cookie, Elf, Candy, Snowman.  We like to go to Legoland around Christmas time and drive around and see lights.  These things are all fun and it's easy to get tangled up in the Magic of Christmas, but I try really hard to make sure my kids know these aren't the reasons for the season.  There's only one, and His name is Jesus.   I try to keep this season centered on Jesus.  BIG emphasis on the try. 

This was from Legoland last year, but I don't think we actually got to go until Dec. 28th.  Thankfully, Christmas decorations don't come down quickly, for the chaotic people like me trying to stretch out the Christmas season.

All this to say, I'm probably not the best person to be writing this, but these are some things we do in our family.  I hope they'll inspire you to try some of them or come up with your own fun Jesus-centered traditions.  If you have any great ones, please share them in the comments!  I'd love to hear about them and maybe try something new.

Advent... Arrival

I grew up knowing Christmas was about Jesus, but I didn't grow up celebrating Advent, but once I learned about it, I knew it was something I wanted to incorporate into my life.  Advent is a Latin term that means "Arrival" and it's a time when we anticipate the Arrival of our Savior.  My first, most favorite tradition with my kiddos is celebrating Advent through The Jesus Storybook Bible.  If you know me at all, you know I adore this book and have been raving about it since Jurnee was tiny.  In fact, I just looked on Amazon, and I first purchased it in September 2013... over TEN YEARS AGO.  Crazy!  I've bought it as a baby shower gift many times since then, because I feel like every family should own it.  It's honestly been my favorite book to read with my kids.  It is so profound and has moved me to tears many times.  It tells some of the major Bible stories but in a way that links them all to Jesus.  

So anyway, years ago, I came across a blog where this amazing lady used The Jesus Storybook Bible for Advent and made an ornament to color to go along with a Bible story leading up to the birth of Jesus for each day of December leading up to Christmas.  She now has an Etsy store, but you can purchase a download of these adorable ornaments for like $4.  I just print them out on white cardstock.  When we first started, I cut out a tree from cheap green wrapping paper and hung it on my kids' bedroom doors and they just taped the ornaments on each day.  It worked just fine, but a year or 2 ago, we upped our game.  I found a felt tree with felt ornaments at Bins and Deals in town.  I didn't really think I needed it or had any clue what I'd use it for, but it was "Fill a cart for $15 Day", so I said what the heck and bought it.  At some point I realized it would be perfect for our Advent tree, so now we attach Velcro that you can buy by the roll at Dollar Tree and stick the ornaments all on our one big felt tree.  I recently discovered basically the same one for less than $5 on Shein!

My kids absolutely love this tradition, even now as they are getting older.  They beg to do it.  As I mentioned above, our schedule this time of year is madness, and some nights on school nights we don't get home until 9:30 or 10, so we don't get to do it every single day, but we double up some days and there have been years we've even had to finish after Christmas.  I'll probably do it myself once my kids are gone, lol!  I know I have more pictures of this from over the years, but I've searched with no luck.  I'll have to add more later on, but these are a few from this year.

Connecting Cultural Traditions to Christmas

It's so easy to get caught up in the commercialism and consumerism of Christmas, but it's just as easy to turn it all back to Jesus.  These are some things we discuss and try to remember:

Christmas trees are evergreen which represent eternal life in Jesus.  Evergreen also represents victory, which is symbolic of Jesus's victory over sin and death.

The star on top of the represents the Star of Bethlehem that led the shepherds to the manger and the wisemen to Bethlehem.  And if you opt for an angel, it's pretty obvious that it represents the heavenly hosts that night.

Lights, lights everywhere... They all represent Jesus, the light of the world, born into a dark world to bring light and hope to everyone.  

Gifts and gift giving represent Jesus, the greatest gift ever given.  We give because He gave.  We also give because it's His birthday and we get the presents, which is a pretty cool concept.  On His birthday, we got the greatest gift of all, a Savior.  I know some families do three gifts, because there are three gifts represented by the wisemen in the Bible, and that's a cool concept.  But I don't think there's anything wrong with being lavish in our gift-giving either.  After all, we serve a God who lavishes us with his love and grace (1 John 3:1 and Ephesians 1:7-8).  Gifts happens to be my love language, so there's that.  I know Santa is a controversial topic, but I think we can all agree, we just need to be careful to keep the focus on Jesus and gifts being given in His honor and the spirit of generosity, whichever way your family sees fit.  This is also why we love to do Operation Christmas Child Shoeboxes as a family each year.  It's so important to give back and let your generosity extend beyond your normal circle.  I highly recommend filling shoeboxes or finding a toy drive to support to help us remember Christmas is about giving, not just receiving.  

We've been doing this for years!  I think this picture was from 2021. I should have taken one this year, because this is the first year Jurnee got really involved.  I think she loves doing this as much as me.  Even Canyon will see things in the store and say, "We need these for shoeboxes!"

Candy Canes have a whole poem written about them and how they connect to Jesus: red for our sin, white for our forgiveness, shaped like a J for Jesus one way and a shepherd's staff the other.  

I know a lot of people like to decorate with snow and snowmen.  It might seem a little harder to make a connection, but I'll never forget being a high schooler, sitting in a CIY conference and singing "Jesus paid it all/all to Him I owe/Sin had left a crimson stain/He washed it white as snow."  We were told to wear white that night, and as we sang about our crimson sin, the lights went red and we were surrounded by a sea of red, and as we sang about begin washed as white as snow, the light changed to white and snow began to fall all around us.  Every time I sing that song, I'm transported back to that moment.  Jesus came to wash us white as snow, so it is certainly fitting. Chris Tomlin and Audrey Assad also came out with a song that can make another beautiful connection to snow.  The song "Winter Snow" says "You came like a winter snow/quiet and soft and and slow/falling from the sky/in the night/to the earth below."  Just like when he appeared to Elijah in 1 Kings 19:11-13 , he could have come in a powerful way, in an earthquake or wind or fire, but instead he came in a gentle whisper.   The song says, "You could've come like a mighty storm/with all the strength of a hurricane/you couldn't come like a forest fire/with the power of heaven in your flame." But he didn't.  He came on a quiet night in a humble way, just like a gentle snow.  

If you try hard enough, I'm sure you can make a connection and find a meaningful reason for all the fun ways we celebrate Christmas.  

Happy Birthday Jesus

When the gifts are done and the celebrations are over, I always get excited that we have this fun tradition to end our Christmas day to look forward to.  After everything is over, we come back to my house and have a small birthday party for Jesus.  We make him a cake and have fun party plates and sing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus and then eat cake and ice cream.  To me, it's the most important thing we do all Christmas season, to wrap it all up and remember what it's all about.  Here's a few pictures from over the years, just don't judge my cake decorating inability, lol!

A Few Miscellaneous Items 

If you're looking to make an investment for your kiddos, we absolutely love our Little People Nativity like this one.  Canyon begs to play with it all year long.

One of my dear friends also gave me a Christmas set of finger puppets that he really enjoys.  They get scattered throughout the house during the Christmas season, but we always manage to find them all to enjoy the next year.  

If you've never watched The Nativity Story as a family, I highly recommend it.  It's such a great portrayal of the Christmas story.

We've even made Gingerbread Nativity Scenes instead of Gingerbread houses before!  Such a fun twist on a traditional activity.

Merry Christmas! 

Merry Christmas, everyone... and to all a good night... or day... or whatever time you read this!  

Guys, I hope you know I'm writing this out of a place of totally NOT having it anywhere close to all together, but trying even in the chaos.  I hope it inspires you in some way, and if it does or you have other ideas, please share them below.

I hope you enjoy this Christmas season and find some time to reflect and find peace and quiet and calm in the chaos.  And may we all remember the reason for the Christmas season, and more importantly, may it not just be for a season.  May we all remember always that He came on a quiet night in Bethlehem to grow up to save us all, once for all!  Amen.

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." -Isaiah 9:6