Tad and I knew even before we had children that we wanted Christmas to be Jesus-centered and we wanted our children to have an understanding at a young age that Christmas is about giving.
We don’t do Santa (that’s a topic for another time) or Elf on the Shelf. We don’t want anything like that to distract from celebrating Jesus’ birth! We still make the Christmas season a joyous, special time.
Our family does simple gifts, too. We give the girls three gifts: something to read, something to wear, and something to play with (as well as pajamas on Christmas eve and stockings on Christmas morning).
We are teaching the girls traditional Christmas carols, like Joy to the World, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Away in a Manger, Silent Night, and O Little Town of Bethlehem. We are planning on going caroling at a nursing home and to shut-ins from our church closer to Christmas.
When we talk about Christmas, I ask Vera what we are celebrating. She responds with either, “Baby Jesus!” or “Jesus’ birthday!” She’s learning to say “Merry Christmas!” (Right now it’s coming out, “Merry Chris-chris!”)
We have been doing Advent using a kit that my mom made for us. It’s a set of magnetic nativity figures (a new one to open every day) and portions of Luke 2 to read each day. Vera looks forward to “Avend,” as she says it, every day. Vera loves all of the animals and playing with the magnets on the fridge. She knows what a stable is and she’ll tell you that a manger is a place where the donkey eats.
We have a plastic nativity set that the girls love to play with. Vera carries the pieces throughout the house and can identify many of them.
Vera and Cordelia have a little tree in their room with lights and small jingle bell ornaments. Vera has also been bringing home lots of ornaments from church that she made in Sunday School and AWANA.
The chalkboard in the kitchen reminds us of the reason for the season.
A stack of red and green towels adds color to a corner of the kitchen.
Our tree is simply decorated with meaningful ornaments.
Our mantle is simple this year, with the focus being a ceramic nativity set my grandmother gave me. Vera was excited to see it when I first put it up.
We have been reading Christmas books with Vera and Cordelia. These two were given to the girls by Grammy and MiMi.
How do you help your children understand the true meaning of Christmas?
I love this! We don’t plan to do Santa, and last year (when my daughter was 3 months old) we received an Elf on the Shelf and returned it for books we knew we’d get use out of because if we don’t plan to do Santa, what would be the point of the elf?!
Anyway, I once read an article about the Santa debate and it brought up the point that Santa is someone who they can’t see, who judges whether they’ve been naughty or nice. Jesus does the same (obviously there’s more to it, but from a kid’s perspective that may be the jist of it at a young age). If (or rather WHEN) they eventually find out Santa isn’t real, couldn’t that ultimately affect their perception on if Jesus is real? That alone was reason enough for me to want no part in it. We plan to teach our girls that Santa is a character, like Mickey Mouse, so that they can still read books and sing songs about him, like they may with other CHARACTERS…he won’t be FORBIDDEN in our house…but he won’t be celebrated either.
Thanks for your refreshing Christmas post!
We’ve never done Santa. Although even after 8 years with a kid, Caleb still wants to do Santa LOL. Even though we have been totally upfront with him and honestly about who he was…etc..etc… he still wants to put cookies out and do all that. I think its just fun for kids and their imagination is in such high gear at this age, they almost cant help it 🙂 – I wont lie, there have been times recently Ive wanted too, just for the fun of it. But it wouldnt make sense to do that now after all these years. We do allow them to put cookies out if they want tho 🙂 – no harm in honest fun.
The Elf on the Shelf thing is just weird tho lol, kinda cute at times but over done. Im good not doing that 🙂
We also did the 3 gift thing. Hmmm… got kinda slack lately 🙂 – then again we’ve been blessed here with people sponsoring families in COR, showering us with gifts. So its kind of spoiled us. We still try to keep it at a minimum though but keeping the number down to “3” isnt always set in stone any more.
I think ultimately you got to find what works with your family… being legalistic abt things isnt right… but taking the real meaning of things out of the picture isnt either.
Trial and error…. trial and error 😉 have a great Christmas!
Such a sweet post! Thanks for giving a peek into your life. As a new mom, these glimpses are so helpful in feeling community and understanding!