Christmas Traditions

With it being ten days until the celebration of our Lord’s birthday I thought I discuss Christmas traditions. Over the years it seems that different cultures have added to and taken away from things that have been done at this time of year. Now I am not going to claim to be some kind of expert on Christmas but Birdie and I have over the years done different things and have found what we think truly reflects what Christmas is supposed to be about.

1. We have stopped putting up a tree. Now I know for some this is the first sign that we are loons. Some people come out and claim that decorating a tree is forbidden in the Bible, but my study of the verses used to claim this shows that this is more about making wooden idols than decorating trees, although I do have problems with a certain song that worships the Christmas tree. We have simply found that it is not what we want to do due to how we present our gifts.

2. We place our gifts around a nativity. When we decided to stop putting up a tree we decided to place the gifts we gave the children around a nativity scene. There is some symbolism here. Fist we limit the number of gifts to three symbolizing the three gifts given to Jesus when the Magi visited Him. Secondly it teaches the children a lesson about not only laying our burdens before Yeshua but also to lay all of the good things we get in life at His feet. Thirdly the limit on the number of gifts teaches the children that the holiday is not about greed and what they are going to get.

3. Santa does not visit our household. This is the one we get the most flack over. This is also one of the first Christmas decisions we ever made. To begin with we made the pact not to lie to our children, and I do not care how you couch it or rationalize it telling your children Santa exists is lying to them. The practical reason being is that if our children knew we lied to them about Santa who they cannot see they have a reason to doubt Yeshua’s existence as well. There are other studies in greed and such that can be discussed as well but that was our primary reasoning.