Christ Centered Christmas

Happy December, everyone!  Now that Caleb and I have a baby, we have begun to think about what we would like holidays to look like in our household.  How can we instill in our kids the real importance of Christmas in a fun, kid-friendly way?  While I am not anti-Santa, presents, or Christmas lights (at all!), I would still like to strive to make Christ's incarnation the biggest focus of Christmas-time.

So I did some research and found some fun activities that families can do with their children to keep this focus.  First, here is a kid-friendly advent calendar with Scripture readings that you can do with your kids.  It is especially fun because it has daily object lessons/activities you can do with your children to help them grasp what you read together.  It would probably take a little planning ahead.  I want to save this calendar, because it is definitely above Emerson's level.  Caleb and I will do our own Scripture readings for this advent season.

Second, I love the advent chain idea found on this page.  Each link has something you can do as a family to serve others or to celebrate Christmas as a family.  You tear off a link each day and do what that link says.  Examples include, shop for toys and donate them, share Christmas memories, make ornaments, take a mini Christmas tree to someone in a nursing home, etc.  What a great way to teach kids that Christmas is not all about themselves!

The final idea I loved is this book idea.  Once you get a good collection of Christmas books, you wrap them in wrapping paper and each day, your child gets to open one book and read it!  You don't get new books every year, you just re-wrap them every year.  You can make this Christ centered by buying children's books that tell the Christmas story.  I think I will probably throw in other fun holiday books as well.  But I definitely want to include many Baby Jesus books!

I hope you find some of these ideas helpful!  While Emerson is still pretty young for these activities, they are definitely fun ideas for the future!  I hope you are enjoying the beginning of your Christmas season!