Christmas is the celebration of Jesus’ birth and this is a message that we cannot afford for our children to miss.  Here are some ways our family makes Jesus the focus of the Christmas Season:

1.  Help someone in need.  There are many opportunities for children to make a difference in the world.  Local service opportunities, making meals, or donating through the World Vision Catalog are just a few options for your kids to choose from to help those in need.  Liz does a fantastic job at asking the kids how they would like use some of their Christmas money to help another person in need.

2.  Read the Christmas Story from the Bible as much as possible.  When the Christmas decorations come out, so does the intentional reading of the Christmas Story.  Each of our children has his or her own Children’s Bible and we enjoy reading the Christmas Story from each one of their Bibles.  There are also many translations of the Bible that you can access and read through sites like BibleGateway.com.

3.  Three gifts for the kids.  Jesus got three gifts.  You are fortunate if you get more, but we’ll stick with three.  Each of our children will receive something to clothe them, grow them spiritually, and something they want.  I’ve heard of other people share that they give four gifts: Something you want, something you need, something you wear, and something you read.  Either of these strategies seem wonderful to me, given the state of our consumer-minded-give-me-more culture.

4.  Attend a Christmas Eve Service.  Our home church does a wonderful job with having Candlelight Services every Christmas Eve.  It is a priority for our family to attend this service together and a strong tradition we share.

5. Birthday cake for Jesus.  We have two kids who have birthdays within a week of Christmas so making a cake for Jesus seems like cake-overload for our family.  Still, making a cake is a great way for our kids to realize the celebration of Jesus’ birth.  And if we make cupcakes, they’re easy to share with the neighbors!

Question: How do you bring the focus to Jesus during the Christmas Season? Click here to comment.

Read more:
- What we told our kids about Santa
- 3 points to a truthful conversation about Santa