December 5, 2022
The True Meaning of Christmas Michelle Wood
As new parents, Steve and I knew we wanted to instill in our children that Jesus is the true meaning of Christmas. We would have Santa, but not as a main focus in our home. We put Jesus first in a variety of ways. One way we incorporated Jesus was by having an Advent calendar. Our Advent calendar has a little door for each day. Behind each door is a little nutcracker to hang on pegs attached to the calendar. Behind each door we also put a slip of paper with a Bible verse. The Bible verses told the story leading up to and including Jesus’ birth. As the kids grew and began to learn to read, they read the verses out loud each day from their children’s Bibles. As they grew older, they came up with praying for a different person each night as well. Another tradition we always did was sometime on Christmas Eve we would have Hannah and Eli help us make a small birthday cake for Jesus, complete with a few candles. We would sing “Happy Birthday” to Jesus reminding them we were remembering his birthday each year. A final way we kept Jesus important was to make Santa small. Santa filled our children’s Christmas stockings and didn’t provide presents under the tree. The kids learned that the presents under the tree were from us and family that loved them.
