Making Christmas about Christ

I originally was going to title this post as "Putting Christ Back in Christmas," but after a moments thought, I changed it. As many people know Christmas was originally an attempt to "Christianize" pagan celebrations that already existed around this time of year and as such some Christians decide not to celebrate Christmas at all. However, my family and I choose to make Christmas about Christ. This is an ongoing process, as I continually review how we celebrate Christmas (and really this is what Christians need to do about every facet of their lives).

Here are some of the ways we make Christmas about Christ:

• Our children know that Santa, Rudolph and such are not real. We've also talked to them about the various Saint Nicholas legends (which may or may not be true) to give them a historical context of where the idea of Santa comes from. The older ones already knew this, but didn't like officially letting go of the idea.
• The children also know that Christmas is a day chosen to have a focused celebration of the birth of Jesus, and not the actual day on which He was born.
• We talked to our children about the fact that none of us deserve gifts. If we are given anything, if is because someone has chosen to give it to us from the generosity of their heart. Therefore we never have the right to complain about a gift.
• All gift giving at Christmas is a reflection of the gift of eternal life that God has given to us through his Son (Eph. 2:8,9).
• We reduced the number of presents they get from us to one. We then have the children swap names so that they think about someone other than themselves (they REALLY enjoyed this).
• Our church gets together and acts out the Christmas story - the whole church is involved. All the children dress up as either sheep (the littlest ones), angels (the girls), shepherds (boys), or wise men (older boys). One father, mother and new baby (we have lots of those) are Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus. The others follow the grand procession around as the Scripture is read and the story is acted out by all.
• Leading up to Christmas, we read "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever." It is a great short story (seven chapters) which confronts legalism and should get everyone thinking about how they view the well known Christmas story. We always work it so that we finish the story on Christmas Eve.
• Also on Christmas Eve we have a Happy Birthday Jesus cake for the kids (Mom really out did herself this year!).
• This year for our Christmas dinner, we had leg of lamb instead of the usual turkey, ham, or roast beef. We used the dinner to talk to our children about the Passover story and shared with them that Christ is the final Passover Lamb -- He is "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29).

There are many other was that you can make Christmas about Christ. What are some other ideas that you have?