4 Ways To Celebrate Jesus This Christmas

4-Ways-To-Celebrate-Jesus

Written by Courtney @ A + Life, Contributing Writer 

December always has a way of sneaking up on us, doesn’t it? I know for our family, with homeschooling, November birthdays, and Thanksgiving, before you know it- December is here! And if we aren’t careful, it can be really easy to get swept up into the massive consumerism of the holiday season and completely miss out on the opportunity to share with our girls the REAL reason we celebrate in the first place.

Jesus, of course! So here are four things that our family does to make sure to keep Jesus at the forefront of all of our celebrating. 

4 Ways To Celebrate Jesus 

Celebrate Advent

Is there anything more beautiful than celebrating the advent season? We make sure to have our family present in church every Sunday during the holiday season. Our kids sit in the service with us, so they get the chance to see our candles being lit, hear the progression of the Christmas story, and the beautiful worship music all preparing our hearts and minds for the wonderful celebration of the birth of Jesus! We also count down to Christmas with…..

Truth In The Tinsel

Have you ever heard of Truth In The Tinsel? It is a wonderful program for the 24 days in December leading up to Christmas to help teach the Christmas story to our littles through hands on crafts and stories. Each day gets a verse, a craft, and an activity to help them remember all of the special details that happened before our Savior was born. We have done Truth In The Tinsel for the last few years and it has been such a blessing to our family! I recommend it to every family I know who has small kids. They love it! 

(PS. If you don’t want to do a craft every day, they have an option to just buy a pack of coloring page style ornaments. So you can still teach the story but have an easy craft to do! Perfect!)

Operation Christmas Child

OCC has been such a blessing to our family! We really want Abigail (and Mabel as she grows!) to learn to GIVE to others, especially those in need. Taking the focus off of themselves and the things that they want or can get, it helps them to turn their eyes to others instead. And as Christian parents, there is almost no better and more tangible way for us to teach them the concept of “loving your neighbor” than through OCC! We love to shop year round with those sweet kids in mind. It has been really neat to listen to Abigail talk about mailing “the little girls” gifts and to go shopping and see her thinking about what they might like. We shop for little toys and craft supplies, toiletries, and other fun things little girls like Abigail would like. Every year we also choose to track our boxes so we can find out where our boxes are going. Last year they went to Mexico and the year before that they went to South America! 

Three Christmas Gifts 

Another way that we keep Christmas from becoming completely overwhelming and about the presents- we only do 3 gifts for each of our girls. As they get older, we plan to incorporate more of the symbolism of Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh into their actual gifts. But, for now, we simply choose three items we know they would love or need to represent the 3 gifts the wise men brought to Jesus. Abigail loves that and we love the opportunity to have just one more way to point her to Jesus this Christmas. 

How do you incorporate Jesus into your Christmas celebration with your family?

About Courtney

Courtney is a former hair stylist turned stay at home mama living in Joplin, Missouri with her husband, Jim and their two little girls, Abigail & Mabel. She can't function without her daily vanilla latte and regularly shares the ups and downs of every day life on her blog A + Life. There you'll find everything from Abigail antics and homeschooling, to DIY and home decor, secondary infertility and loss, reviews of Courtney's favorite products, a lot of laughter, a bit of sarcasm, a bunch of grace, and a whole lot of family.