Christmas thoughts

This year is the first year that I feel like T will be old enough to really participate in the Christmas celebration, and I have been spending some time thinking about how to start talking to him about Christmas. I think we might try to do a Jesse tree this year, I got “The Advent Jesse Tree” by Dean Lambert with devotions for children and adults.  We haven’t really had family devotions before now, and I am sure it will feel a little awkward at first.  My hope that by starting now we can push through the awkwardness to something real.  Also, probably a lot of it will go over his head, but hopefully it can be the start of a way to weave talking about faith into our every day life.  He is a total sponge right now, and I feel like we are entering into a key window of opportunity in his life.  J is obviously still too young to understand any of this, but maybe by the time he is able to pay attention, it will just be a normal part of our Christmas celebration.

I am also struggling with integrating the parts of Christmas that come to us from our American culture, with our faith.  I love the family celebrations, and I like giving and receiving gifts, and we are definitely still doing all of that this year, but I really want to make sure it isn’t too distracting.  Having children really changes my perspective on a lot of things!

Tags: christmas, jesse tree