Christmas, our family chooses to celebrate it! This year it has come to my attention that many Christian families choose not to celebrate it at all for many reasons such as it not really being the season of the year that Christ was probably born or it being a time of year that many people lust selfishly for gifts. I believe Romans 14 gives us an allowance as Christians to celebrate specific days differently than other brothers and sisters in Christ without it being wrong if we are doing it in faith-Read it! (This may be something I write about in a future post.)

We will still choose to celebrate Christ’s birth to this earth and show our children the wonderful gift of God and teach them the Biblical emphasis of gifts are to be given rather than received. It is the time of year when people are often open to the gospel and we can share the gift God gave us of His only begotten Son with more ease than other seasons of the year.

As many of you know we are living with my in-laws so our celebration is a little different from our usual “just us” routine. We will be with my husband’s family for the first time at Christmas in the eleven years we have been married. We are getting introduced to their traditions and routines while still trying to incorporate ours.

For Christmas devotions we are using the Gloria: A Christmas Hymn Study by Not Consumed. I received it as a free download and thought it would be a great addition to our school days. We are still trying to catch up on our homeschooling after our move so we are still working through our school work and having these devotions in the morning have been a blessing. We have used Not Consumed’s When I Survey Hymn Study in our Resurrection Week activities and really liked how it focuses on the words of the hymns and teaches the meanings of how scripture intertwines in the depth of the hymn writer’s lyrics.

For fun I purchased our first Little People Nativity for our daughters on eBay. Word to the wise, make sure you have all the pieces in the set that you buy because I did not even notice Jesus was not included in the one I bought. Thankfully though there was a baby Jesus listed and we finally completed our set! This keeps our girls thinking of the Christmas story during their playtime and can be something we keep until our newest addition grows up and plays with it.

I also purchased a board game called Back to Bethlehem, created by a homeschool Christian dad who wanted to make learning about the birth of the Saviour memorable with his own family. We played it for the first time when I went to watch a friend’s children one evening and it was a lot of fun! We laughed at oinking out a Christmas song, the person that was able to sit on another player’s lap, and was able to learn new things about each other while answering the campfire conversation cards.

We are going to have a Royal Baby Shower with our children on Christmas morning. We decided to choose a local church planter and their new baby church that was started in November and buy gifts for their nursery. Since their church is located in an elementary school we bought a big tub to put all of our toys in so it would be easy to move and to store. This is the part where we’re really focusing on giving to the Lord, something for use for His work. Together the kids and I wrapped the gifts and the plan is to take it to the church planter’s home and make a big deal about how special it is to give to the Lord.

We decided to work on singing a special song about Christ for our extended family gathering as a gift for them. My husband’s father will play the piano for us and we will sing with our children. The rest of the day will be spent with our family enjoying the gift of each other.

I hope you have a Merry Christmas and are able to think upon the remembrance of the beautiful gift of salvation God gave to us when He sent His only begotten Son!

*The idea for the cupcakes from a pin that I found on Pinterest but the link to the original webpage is now unavailable. Click on the photo to go to the pin on Pinterest.

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