Creating Meaningful Christmas Traditions

Secular Christmas traditions are plentiful in our culture. Santa Claus, songs about roasted chestnuts and silver bells, twinkly lights and bulging stockings, sneaky elves, and decorated evergreens. Around the world, holiday traditions include hiding brooms and mops, feasting on KFC, hiding pickles, and draping spiderwebs on the family tree.

In a world that boasts so many busy holiday traditions, maybe you’d like to include a practice that will feed your longing for meaning, hope, or rest. Maybe you want to eliminate a thing or two from your usually-fraught December calendar. Perhaps you want to spend the season seeking presence over presents. Consider pursuing something more meaningful than amassing more things. This year may be one in which you dig a little deeper into the beauty and mystery that Jesus took on flesh to be our God-With-Us. This is a great time to discover new practices that might become traditions pointing to the celebration of Jesus’ birth.

During Advent, the season leading up to Christmas, we are presented with just four weeks to prepare our hearts and focus our souls not only on the birth of Jesus but also what it means to believe him, follow him, and to share our joy with the world. How do you want to spend those weeks? What would you like to include or remove to allow yourself to worship and wonder at God’s love for you?

Here are some ideas to get you started on a path of deeper connection with the rooted richness of Christmas. None of us needs more to do during the holidays, but these things can easily be incorporated however they work best for you.

• A devotional book can guide you and your family into God’s presence. I recommend a new advent book written by husband and wife authors Stephen and Rebecca Grabill. The Joy of Advent delves into the deep end of the nativity and yet is joyfully accessible to young kids, adults, and anyone in between. They have offered daily email readings during Advent and into the 12 days of Christmas. The accompanying artwork, music, activities, and printables supplement the reading for each day and synchronize the lessons beautifully.

• Decorating a Jesse tree is a terrific way for your family to follow the entire story arc of the Bible at Christmas time. A helpful resource for this and one I’ve used with my family for years is from Ann Voskamp, The Greatest Gift: Unwrapping the Love Story of Christmas.
• Simply light candles as a symbol of the Light of the World. That’s also one of my tricks for not having time to clean before people come over. Candlelight conceals the dust and clutter!
• One year when our kids were young, we gathered with a few other families and acted out the nativity story, complete with simple costumes and props. We shared a meal afterward. It brought out some giggles and untapped acting skills and was a beautiful way to help even the youngest kids there engage in the story and the truths embedded within.
• You might consider, as a group, instead of exchanging gifts this year, donating to an agreed-upon ministry. If you are someone with the love language of gift giving, you could do this with the adults in the group while still giving small gifts to the kids. Or the gifts could be time or shared experiences: a coffee date, babysitting, a meal, a concert or an activity you both love.
• Enjoying Christmas music can impart much Biblical truth, even while adding to the festivities of the season. Ponder some lines you might hear with new imagination and faith: “Let heaven and nature sing” from Joy to the World or the vivid imagery of Away in a Manger with the cattle lowing, the stars in the bright sky, and the baby with no bed. Many Christmas carols end with deep doctrines of the Trinity and salvation. Consider the final verse in Of the Father’s Love Begotten: “Christ, to you, with God the Father and the Spirit, there shall be hymn and chant and high thanksgiving and the shout of jubilee.” Or verse three of Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming: “True God and yet true man, he came to save his people from earth’s dark night of sin.” Or, “Mild, he lays his glory by, born that we no more may die” from Hark! The Herald Angels Sing. There is deep and ageless treasure in many of the beautiful Christmas hymns. Make a playlist of your favorite sacred Christmas music or search for a station on a music streaming app.
• Finally, consider hosting anyone who doesn’t have a place to belong on Christmas. We are encouraged in scripture to welcome the fatherless, the widow, the foreigner (Deuteronomy 10:19). It could be anyone in your path: a friend, neighbor, or co-worker. We’re also invited to “be inventive in hospitality” (Romans 12:13). Maybe that means planning a game or simple activity to draw someone into your space with less pressure on continual conversation. Maybe it looks like bringing some holiday food to someone if they don’t necessarily want to join your family. Or invite someone to join you at a restaurant, concert or other outing that your family enjoys around the holidays.

This list can be a starting place for shifting your focus during the holidays. Brainstorm with your family for ways to draw near to God and focus on the gift of salvation given to us through a baby born in a manger. In the end, feel free to say no to things that deplete and overwhelm while you take time to do the things that actually feed the longing that we all have for less stress, more connection, and enriching our souls.