Restoring Christmas to Adoring Jesus

Several years ago I started reading the One Year Bible and as I was preparing for Christmas it struck me how throughout the Bible people experienced a decay and even destruction in their culture when God was not first in their lives.  In fact, I began to see how God is jealous for the trust of His people.  So many times people invented other gods or adopted the gods of those cultures around them.

Since it was December, and everyone was getting prepared for Christmas I began to wonder how God must feel about sharing His special day with Santa Claus and all the other seasonal characters that decorate our homes inside and out and fill our lawns.  So I decided to go on a mission to put Christ back in Christmas in our home.

I was shocked how hard it was to find anything that had to do with the birth of our Savior in local stores.  Hobby Lobby had the most, Walmart had a few things, and Cracker Barrel had a few things.  The best place I found was a little Tea Shop in our town. They had taken the effort to decorate the shop with nativities and beautiful ornaments about the birth of Jesus.  I had a lot of gingerbread people so I enlisted my grandkids to help me transform them into Angels, Shepherds, Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus.   Kids are so creative and I was amazed at how well they turned out and how much fun we had in the process.  When I took the kids home later that day we made a game of looking for Nativity related decorations in yards as we drove the two miles from my house to their house. I think we counted five.

Ever since that year I am still on my mission to put Christ back into Christmas.  After all “He is the Reason for the Season.”  I got my grandkids involved again this year by letting them paint wooden Nativity ornaments to put in their rooms. I have also issued a challenge to them to keep track of how many Nativity related things they see when they are driving to school, church, basically anywhere they go and then when we are all together the day we celebrate Christmas as a family we will see who saw the most and compare what they saw.  So, I wonder if you’d join me on my mission and take the challenge to make Christ the center of Christmas in your own home. 

Merry Christmas!