Christmas Traditions

This will be Lawrence and my fourth Christmas as a married couple and second Christmas as parents, and I can't say that I've been good at or inspired to begin many new traditions of our own. I recently began reading a book, Treasuring God in Our Traditions by Noel Piper and have been freshly challenged and inspired to consider how I might build our family's traditions around God.

She tells of her experience as a new mother, realizing that for everything she and her husband did, she would have a little one asking, "why". She writes, "Why?" I realized that was a question I was going to have to answer from now on, not just for Christmas traditions that particular year, but for all years and every day. At that moment I knew that "just because" was no answer. Nor was "because that's the way Grandmother or Granddaddy do it" or "because it's pretty" or "because it's convenient" or "because that's what everybody does."

So in an attempt to make our traditions meaningful in the Almengor household, particularly at Christmas, I'm soliciting for input from others, for I have nearly no good ideas on my own. If there is anyone still reading blogs at this time of year, let me hear from you. What traditions have you incorporated in your home that help your family remember God, think upon God, center their thoughts and festivities around God?