Christmas Traditions

Our tiny Christmas tree with the Christmas books

Our Christmas Books

Uh-oh...she found my computer.  This isn't a good thing.

Our Christmas advent calendar.  It's a felt board with a the characters from the Nativity Scene.  The last day is obviously the little Christ Baby in a manger.  I love it.

The Christmas train is in his "shed" under the kids table.  :)

I'm trying really hard to start some new family traditions that help us focus and teach our kids what this time of year is really for.  So, all the traditions we've started all center on the Christ.  Our advent calendar is the nativity scene.  We have 2 different nativity scenes that are very child friendly.  One is from wood blocks with stickers on it, and the other is the Fisher Price nativity, and the kids love to play with them.  One of my favorite things is to hear Shordy play with them and tell the story in his words.  It's pretty amazing how much little kids know and understand.

Funny story about Shordy:  We've talked about how Christmas is about when Jesus was born and that it's when we celebrate His birthday.  We've talked about the Wise Men and how they brought gifts to the Christ child.  So, one day I hear him playing and he has the Wise Men in front of the Christ baby and he starts singing "Happy Birthday" to the baby.  He then informs me that the Wise Men sang "Happy Birthday" and brought birthday presents when they saw him, b/c it was Jesus' birthday.  :)  LOVE this little story.

I've tried to remove Santa from pretty much any of our conversation about Christmas.  He obviously knows who he is, b/c of all the commercialization in the stores, but we don't talk much about him at home.  He knows he comes Christmas Eve, but in our house Santa only brings one present.  The rest of the presents are from our family.  I REALLY want our kids to be good, not b/c Santa is watching to see if you are naughty or nice, but b/c Jesus wants us to be kind and nice all year long...not just in the month of December.

The other tradition I decided to start this year is also a count-down sort of thing as well.  I got 24 different Christmas books.  I made sure they were non-Santa commercial Christmas in nature.  They were all about being kind, or different stories of Christ, or traditional stories from other countries.  I wrapped them all up and the kids get to open a new one each night and we read it for bedtime.  I'm very excited about this tradition.

Anyway...these are a few of the new traditions we are starting in our home.  I'm really hoping that in bringing in the Christ centered traditions my children will truly begin to understand and appreciate what this time of year is REALLY about.