Traditions?

In the midst of the Christmas season, I had not one, but two moms ask me if I would be willing to blog about my family's Christmas traditions. I explained to them that I would, but it probably wouldn't be until after Christmas and that they would probably not be impressed when I did and that I certainly wasn't an authority on how to have a Jesus-centered Christmas.

I've been wrestling with how to share all that's on my heart when it comes to this topic. Because it's complicated for me and I feel like I need to share some background. So, here goes...

When I was growing up, my parents loved me. Very much. I always knew that. However, they both came out of lots of brokenness, which they were in the process of working out. As a result of that, there had been previous marriages and previous children, which always complicated Christmas a little bit. Who am I kidding? It complicated all of life a little bit. And inevitably, that effected the kids involved. Sometimes more than a little bit. That's what you call living.in.a.fallen.world. I'm thankful for my childhood. God has redeemed the low points and used them to make me who I am in Him. He has also done a work in my parents and they are continuing to grow and heal even in the most recent years. It's a good thing. I truly believe that they did the best they could with where they were at when I entered the picture.

That being said, my Christmas memories vary. But I can tell you that I always loved Christmas. I loved the tree, the lights, the presents, and the fact that it would be one day a year where my parents would stop their busyness and be together. It's the only holiday that focused on our individual family for the day and not the extended family of grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles.

I have to say though, that there was never a real emphasis on Jesus. I knew it was his birthday, I knew it was about Him, but the actions and the traditions were not reflective of that. I don't fault my parents. At. All. My mom had come out of some pretty extreme poverty and she put out lots of energy to make sure our Christmas was magical when it came to gifts. There was also energy to give to working out the Christmas visitation schedule for the other kids. Not to mention, my parents weren't exactly like-minded about faith, especially in the early years. It was complicated. But, the bottom line is...I still grew up loving Christmas and it was the most magical time of year.

So, when Ryan and I got married, we waded through lots of muck bringing together two different ideas of what Christmas was supposed to look like. We didn't even agree on what day the presents were supposed to be opened. But, we both wanted to tightly cling to time with our families, because for both of us, there were some very deep emotional things involved in that season. We never thought twice about the pattern we developed, which involved going to his parents for Christmas Eve and then getting up early Christmas morning and driving 3 hours to my parents. We did this for at least 12 years- even after a move to North Carolina and later to Georgia. We didn't really think about it. Each time was non-negotiable for each one of us. We didn't really work on developing many of our own traditions. It didn't occur to us that we needed to.

However, in recent years, we have become increasingly aware that we needed to make some changes. We haven't traveled on Christmas in about 4 years. We've tried to implement more and more traditions for our own family unit and we've tried to shift the focus, a little at a time. I'm going to be honest here and tell you that it's complicated.

I read the blogs of families who are going radical and "redeeming Christmas" and they sound great. They're so brave. I'm not there yet. Maybe I'm not holy enough, maybe I'm not brave enough, maybe I am desperately clinging to the things that made that part of my life so magical growing up, maybe I've just not been convicted that I need to forsake everything that Christmas was to me when I was a child. I like the gifts, the tree, the stockings, and the lights. Whatever it is, whatever reason I have for keeping so many of the "pagan" elements around, right now, me and Jesus are okay with it. That may change, I don't know. But right now, I'm choosing to extend grace to myself. I feel certain that He is too.

However, all of that being said, that doesn't mean that we don't take measures to transfer our faith to our children during this special time of year. We do. We do take time to worship, to focus, to serve, to give, to celebrate, and to invest in each other. But, we've done it in a wide variety of ways. It rarely looks the same way twice. This year, it's been even more pliable and we've been able to identify the things that the kids truly consider "required traditions." Here is some of what we've done:

• We haven't done Santa. Some of the godliest people I know do Santa. That's great for them, but we don't do Santa. I was one of those children who was devastated when I found out the truth and I decided early on I wasn't comfortable with the creativity that was involved with telling the story.
• Every year, we do try to give to someone who has need in some way. We've done all sorts of things, we've done the shoeboxes, we've picked names off a tree to shop for, we've adopted families with needs through a SS class, last year we did 12 days of Christmas gifts for a family that we were involved in sharing our faith with. That was definitely the kid's favorite. They loved the ringing and then dashing from the doorstep every night for 12 nights. It doesn't matter so much to us what we do, but that we do something(s) and that our kids are involved. This year it was simply baking cookies to share with some neighbors that we've met.
• We always help the kids make gifts to give to the people that have invested in them through that year as a way of saying thank you. Teachers, coaches, etc.
• Every year, we put up our Christmas tree together (usually the Sunday after Thanksgiving) and on the night that we do, we eat "party foods" like sausage balls, fruit and dip, and cheese cubes. I learned this year, that my children consider that a non-negotiable.
• We do some sort of nightly Christmas count-down and we use that time to share the Christmas story. This was a resource that we used when our kids were younger (though ours was the first edition.) Now that they're older we use the Bible. It works amazingly well.
• We give each of our children 3 gifts, as a reflection of the gold, frankincense, and myrrh that the wisemen gave.. Although, I'm going to be honest here and say, we also do stockings and they involve little gifts. And sometimes those 3 gifts are really multiple gifts with one theme. Like this year, Abby got an I-Touch. But with it she got a cover and a docking station too. But we counted it as one gift. So, it's probably not as minimalist as it should be. It works for us.
• We bake together. We eat together. We laugh together. Those are all rock solid traditions.
• That's really about it when it comes to the set-in-stone traditions. There are several other favorites that we have done off and on through the years, but we don't do them every year. These would include things like making gingerbread houses, crafting ornaments, christmas light driving, caroling, and hosting parties of different sorts for different purposes.

Here's the bottom line. This is one of those many areas where I think it's really important that Jesus followers extend a lot of grace to other Jesus followers and even more grace to those who don't know Christ. One of the current trends I see with the explosion of blogs, social media, Pinterest, etc. is that there is so much opportunity to share great ideas and see what others are doing well. I think that's great. However, that's just what you're seeing. The part of their life that they're doing well. And all of those representations of other families doing it well can cause us moms to sink quickly into feelings of guilt and inadequacy. That's not good. In fact, there is a little verse in the beginning of Romans, chapter 8 that says, "There is now, therefore, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." I choose to think that applies in how we celebrate Jesus birth.

Don't get me wrong. I want to use the season wisely. More than anything, I want to capitalize on the fact that it's a time of year when those around me who don't know Christ may be more willing than ever to hear the good news. I want to celebrate in a way that honors Christ and encourages my family. But, I have to be very careful not to focus on the details so much that I lose the joy. And, while I have a responsibility to share faith with and disciple my children, my decisions about how we celebrate will not single handedly determine whether or not they walk away from my home loving Jesus and sold out to his work. I'm only one part of that puzzle.