Christmas time offers a chance to do a lot of things. One of them is go broke. That happens a lot. It offers us a chance to get out of work for a couple of days. that's a good thing. It also offers us a chance to strengthen our bond as families. A lot of time when students are out of school for long periods of time they tend to start to, how should I say, annoy adults. It works vice versa as well. I want to talk about family traditions at Christmas. You know those wacky things that only your family does at during the holidays. My in-laws have a number of traditions at multiple holidays. I want to highlight two of them here. One thing that we do every year is opening one present on Christmas Eve. You've probably heard of that one before. The truth is that we know what we are getting every Christmas eve. A new pair of Pajama pants. Traditionally the kids would get the pj pants and would wear them to bed. Then they would wake up and have Christmas morning in their new pjs. The first time I heard of this I was terrified for the following reasons...
I love the faces that the dad makes. Priceless. Luckily, I never had to wear a bunny costume although it's not too late for this year.
Secondly, before the family comes downstairs to open up gifts, we gather at the top of the stairs and pray. We thank God for what the day means to us and to not forget. I'm the pastor of the group but I'm also probably the most eager to get downstairs to open stuff. This tradition helps to re-focus me at an important time. It's really awesome.
As parents, your (and soon to be mine) primary purpose is to raise your children to be able to function in the world as an adult. As a Christian parent, your purpose is to spiritually prepare your child for life on their own. Family traditions are a good way to pass along strong spiritual truths to your kids.
My wife grew up with these traditions and now we eagerly wait to pass them along to our kids. We look forward to teach our family the importance behind these holidays. Traditions can really help that. So until next time, Merry Christmas. I look forward to serving with you in the new year!
Jon
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On Christmas Eve, we make and "decorate" a birthday cake for Jesus. Christmas morning, before the rest of us go downstairs, dad gets the cake, lights the candles and brings it upstairs where we all sing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus and blow out the candles. Then we all rush down to open presents. At least it's a little refocus on the REAL reason for Christmas.
that's cool! Thanks for joining in on the Parent's page
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