Jesus is our Joy...

And Mary said,
"My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices
in God my Savior..."
Luke 1:46-47


And the angel said to them,
"Fear not, for behold,
I bring you good news of great joy
that will be for all the people.
For unto you is born this day
in the city of David
a Savior who is
Christ the Lord."
Luke 2:10-11


When they saw the star,
They rejoiced exceedingly
with great joy.
Matthew 2:10

Christmas Traditions ... by Tina

Here are a few things we have done over the years to celebrate Christmas...

On Christmas Eve, our family usually goes out for an early dinner around 4:00pm (there have been times when we just had a special dinner at home). Most years we invite another family to join us to celebrate the evening. After dinner we go to the 6:00 Love Feast service. After the service our family goes home for the kids to open one small gift which is usually pajamas, house shoes or something fun for the kids to do that evening.

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Occasionally my extended family will come for Christmas. Last year, my mom and dad were here and they gave each of the kids a new Bible for Christmas. My husband, Steve, did something very special... he asked my dad to pray a special blessing over the kids. He had the kids get on their knees in front of them and my dad laid his hands on them and said a prayer of blessing for each of them. Although it was a little awkward for the kids, it was a very precious moment for me and I pray that our kids will always be grateful and remember their Christian heritage.

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One of our annual traditions -- that I routinely vow to start earlier on or not do the following year -- is our family Christmas letter. In the beginning I would do a separate letter for family and friends, church staff, and youth workers. That idea quickly dissolved after a few years -- especially after we moved a few times and our mailing list grew -- and it has become one compiled letter for the masses. My current mailing list is more than 200 recipients... so now that the kids are older we have brought them in to help with the assembly. It has been written using different themes... simple holiday greetings from our house to yours, more elaborate letters including a page of pictures, a year of firsts for our family, special memories of the previous year, a letter written by our kids, and then there was that one year ... when I had a great idea of writing about the "Twelve Months before Christmas," which included pictures. It ended up being five pages long!!! Can you imagine us printing and stapling 1,000 pages, not to mention addressing and stamping all those letters? After that year, we have gone to one page letters and one Christmas card photo. Seriously, the annual letters have really become a highlight for our family (now having to be approved by our three teenagers before sending out) as they record a little family history about each year. We've been told by family and friends that we don't see often that they love keeping up with our family through our Christmas letter.

Photography by Heather for this post...

Christmas Eve Book Dinner ... by Ivy

I do not recall what year this family tradition of ours officially started, but since it has we have not missed one year. My parents were both educators and were the entire time I was growing up. My father was a high school teacher teaching several subjects including English, Poetry, American Literature, Biology, Chemistry, Enrichment, and yes the list does go on, believe it or not. If you are wondering... no, never play Trivial Pursuit with the man because you WILL lose. My sister-in-law while she was living with us for a short time challenged him every night for I think a month and still never beat him. Probably the closest anyone HAD come but it still didn't happen.

Anyway, my mother was an elementary teacher teaching 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th. She taught 1st grade the longest and that was truly her favorite age. I say they did teach, as in past tense, because my mom is currently an elementary school principal and my dad is an Instructional Facilitator for the high school.

Okay on with the tradition... since our family was absorbed in education, every year for Christmas my parents would end up buying everyone a book. Somehow (I was too little so I don't remember exactly how) we ended up unwrapping these on Christmas Eve instead of waiting until Christmas morning. I think because we really wanted to open something and my dad usually wanted his book so he could stay up reading it Christmas Eve night waiting for us kids to go to bed so he could put out all our toys! However it happened, my mom would wrap up the books and place them on our plates for our Christmas Eve Dinner. This was a big deal - the good dishes, candlelight, the works! And before dinner we would open our books, ooh and ahh and flip through them, reading the beginning to perk our interest, and then we would have to put them aside while my dad read from THE BOOK: the Bible. My dad would read the Christmas story from one of the gospels (we would mix it up every year) while the rest of us took the Nativity pieces and the first mention of the name of the character we had we would place them in the middle of the table in its right spot! Once books were opened and THE Book was read, then dinner would officially begin! My request was always Cherry Glazed Ham, yum yum!!

Even though both my brother and I are both grown and have families of our own we ALL still do the Christmas Eve Book Dinner!

Photography by Heather for this post...

More collections...

Here are a few more collections from our Friends...

Snowmen...

Nutcrackers...

Tatted Christmas crafts ...

Collections as traditions...

My cousin, Barbara, has a Santa collection that would rival anything you've seen in a museum. I"m not talking a mantle full of the jolly ol' elf. I'm talking about house full, with every surface imaginable hosting its own special Santa. She is a collector extraordinaire.

I have to say that I LOVE it when I know people collect a certain type of Christmas-themed objects. It makes gift-giving so much easier.

After hearing from many of you, I realize that those of you who are moms and grandmas and aunts are busy building tree ornament collections for the little ones in the family. We are doing the same. Our tree will be virtually bare once everyone gets married and establishes their own family traditions. On the other hand, their trees will be packed, so they will start their families with traditions in place.

Here is a quick tour of our family's ornament tradition...

Each child in the family has a
Precious Moments First Christmas ornament hanging on our tree.

Our oldest child collects pig Christmas tree ornaments.

Our second child plays football, so each Christmas,
he gets a football ornament.

Our youngest was a Thomas the Tank Engine maniac when he was small. We've decided to keep building that collection in tree ornaments so that he can share it with his children one day.

We write each child's initials and the year on the ornaments to help everyone remember who got what when.

While decorating the tree is distinctly a family affair, the job of taking it down belongs solely to Mom. So when I start untrimming the tree after January 6th, I take the opportunity to pray for my kids as I carefully pack away their ornaments until next Christmas. I pray for them-- for their relationship with the Lord, for their future spouses and children, for their ministries, for anything that the Lord brings to mind during that time. As only the Lord can do, He takes what I would normally see as drudgery and makes it into a beautiful opportunity to spend time worshipping Him and covering my children in prayer. What a blessing!

Quick idea...

[There will be a traditions post later tonight, but here's an idea to ponder while you're walking through the stores finishing up your shopping for those difficult-to-buy-for friends and relatives.]

Do you have an old wall frame with a glass front lying around? We had one that once showcased an old movie poster. When our kids outgrew that Disney movie stage, we repurposed the frame for our memory verse center. We painted it black, placed a decorative piece of poster board where the children's print used to be, and hung it on the wall next to our kitchen table.

Now when we eat dinner, we have God's word as a focal point for our conversation. Here is the verse our youngest memorized for school this week:



What a neat way to keep track of your Advent verses too. Write them on the board daily. Or pick just one to focus on for the week. It's another way to remind ourselves Whose season it is!

Or if you're looking for a last minute gift idea for someone, give them a picture frame with a pretty piece of scrapbooking paper where the picture would go. Then type a list of verses that you think would be meaningful to them. Include a dry erase marker and you've given them a special chance to have God's word before them throughout the day.

A couple of things worth noting:

1. The frame needs to have glass in the front, not Plexiglas. Plasticky things will capture your dry erase markings forever. Glass is nonporous and thus, erasable.

2. You can write a verse on the glass before wrapping it, but these are dry erase markers, so it won't likely be as pretty when they open it as it was when you wrote it.

Family Traditions - Part 3 ... by Karen D.

My in-laws host our family every Christmas for lunch. There are certain things that are traditional and make Christmas with them very special. We always have hot apple cider, ambrosia (a recipe passed down from my mother-in-law's mother), electric bells ringing on the front porch when we walk up to the house, and a Christmas pageant starring all the grandchildren. Even though the oldest grandchildren are teenagers and you would expect their enthusiasm to wane, they are eager to participate. They look forward to dressing up, playing their roles, and reading the story of Jesus' birth from Luke.