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| Photo by: artur84 |
Christmas.
Oh,
the memories! When we lived in our “home” country,
I remember fragrant trees full of lights, the magic feeling of entering the
living room on Christmas morning. I remember believing in Santa Claus—and then
finding out Santa was my Daddy. I remember eggnog, fruitcake, making cookies, and
eating pumpkin pies. My mother decorated the table with red candles and
greenery. We loved Christmas!
My
husband and I were in our twenties when we made the
move across the sea. Spain was a whole new Christmas experience. While strolling
through the city, we noticed that almost every store window contained some
version of a manger scene. Some included a whole village of people, cows, and
sheep—beside wise men and camels! We took our little children to the parade in
town. It started with a young man in Eastern dress carrying a pole with a
comet-star on it. Then came people with torches, and floats. The first float
had a makeshift stable on it, with Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus inside. After
the floats, passed shepherds with small herds of sheep and children carrying
lambs and rabbits. There was a group of men in native Spanish costumes, strutting
with huge bells on their backs. Then, we heard the excited crowd, “They’re
coming! They’re coming!” In no time, we could see the horses. Melchor, Baltasar,
and Gaspar (the three wise men, traditional Spanish names for them) rode in
splendid costumes and threw candy to the children. (How much closer this is to
the Bible than Santa Claus and elves!) Our Spanish church held a traditional
Christmas feast—lamb chops and much more, each lady bringing her own special
dish.
The season in Spain lasts from Christmas
Eve until January 6th (Kings’ Day, Reyes). We enjoy the long season because it isn’t all over on
Christmas Day. It gives us more time to think about what God did when He became
flesh for us.
Christmas also provides us with a
natural opportunity for a gospel witness to the people we know and to the
communities around our church. (Several people are in our church today because
of Christmas tracts.)
Christmas
abroad is nothing like Christmas at home. But it
doesn’t have to be.
One Christmas, we visited our son and
daughter-in-law, who minister in the tropics. It was so different to see palm
trees adorned with lights and to get sunburned while enjoying a Christmas walk together!
The message of Christmas is always the same: God wants to redeem people, so He made a Way. It was the
Way that was planned before the earth was formed. (Hebrews 9:26) He planned to
let His Son take on the body of a baby, live a sinless life, and be sacrificed
for the sins of the world.
Jesus is the message of Christmas.
How
can you bring the true meaning of Christmas—Jesus—front and center in your family?
Here
are some suggestions. Some will recreate that
“fuzzy feeling” of Christmases past for you and your family, and some are to
help you keep a Jesus focus.
- Decorate. Do whatever you need to with the means you have to make the inside
of your home festive. Use garlands or paper chains or ribbons. Hang shiny
things and red and green. Use candles. You don’t have to have a tree,
necessarily. If it works with your adopted culture, put up a manger scene or
two. Let the children help. Decorations make Christmas special.
- Bake. I’m certainly no pastry chef. Some of my cutout cookies ended up as
unrecognizable. But they smelled good while baking, and they tasted yummy.
Especially if you have little children, make cookies. You can make something
simple and decorate with colored sugar or sprinkles. Any baking the family does
together is memorable. You can make pumpkin (or butternut squash) pies,
fruitcakes, or festive fruit breads. Even an apple pie or chocolate cake takes
on a new face during the holidays. Our family especially loves cinnamon rolls
with icing for Christmas breakfast!
- Create
family traditions. For some reason, Christmas is
tailor-made for traditions. Some that our family enjoyed were: decorating and
baking together, an English language
missionary-only get-together on Christmas Eve,* reading Luke 2 before opening
Christmas stockings on Christmas morning (oranges and walnuts in the stockings,
with candy and maybe a little present), opening Christmas presents one at a
time after breakfast, turkey and stuffing for Christmas dinner, and lots of
Christmas music from the day after Thanksgiving until after Reyes (January 6th). (*For
the missionary Christmas Eve, we observed it early in the afternoon. It
included music and sacred readings—something from each family—and some funny
readings after the more spiritual part. Everyone brought Christmas goodies to
share. Later, some of the families would have their Christmas Eve at home. We
would go back to our house, get the kids to bed, and bring the gifts out of
hiding and put them around the tree for the early morning surprise.)
- Read
the Christmas story from the Bible. Read Luke 2 and
Matthew 1:18-2:23. Passages like Philippians 2:5-11 and John 1:14 take on fresh
meaning at Christmastime. If you have small children, help them understand the
Christmas story. Teach them to love the Baby Jesus. Tell them how God came to
earth. You may want to act out the story, using robes and drapes for costumes
and a doll for the Baby. Let them color pages about the Christmas story. Talk
with older children about the characters in the Christmas story. (Who was
Gabriel? What can we admire about Joseph? What did Mary give up to become the
mother of her Savior? Why is Mary’s speech so much like Hannah’s in 1 Samuel 2?
Why was the birth of God’s Son first announced to shepherds? Did the angels sing? How old was Anna? How did Simeon
know this Baby was the Lord? Who were the wise men? What happened with the
star? Why was Herod furious?) Make the Christmas story central to your
Christmas celebration. Make sure the Birthday Person is the reason for the
party.
- Share
the gospel. According to 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, the
gospel is all about the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. But, without
Jesus coming to earth as a human being, without His incarnation, the gospel
wouldn’t have been possible. Jesus said, To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the
world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the
truth heareth my voice (John 18:37b). People are more receptive to
hearing about Jesus at Christmas than at any other time of the year. Be
prepared and share Christ this Christmas season. Make sure the whole family gets
involved.
Have
a truly blessed Christmas, wherever
you are!
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| Photo: Gualberto107 |
