Heart Reflections Live

What are your Christmas family traditions? How do you keep Christmas Christ-centred in your home?

Many of the community events we take our children to every year are totally free, and yet they help encompass what we feel a Christ- centred Christmas is all about.

On the Sunshine Coast, we always take our children to visit the living nativity display at the Bokarina Uniting Church. They vary the sets every year and do a truly excellent job. It's a way of taking our children back to the first Christmas, and then, once you have gone through the Church, you can join in the carol singing in the tent at the back, or take a family stroll around the nearby streets to see the Christmas light displays.

We also usually visit the Maroochy Baptist Church for a similar event. As well as re-enacting the first Christmas, they have a free musical, baby animal farm, cotton candy for the children and a church light display. We usually end up bumping into someone we know, so it often turns into a great night of Christian fellowship.

We also usually go to one of the community Carols by Candlelight events and target 2 or 3 different areas to drive through on different nights to enjoy the Christmas lights with our children. I tend to try to avoid the shops as much as possible this time of year, but will usually visit one of the major shopping centres at least once with the family to see the store window displays.

On the home front, we make much of the decorations we have, and enjoy singing along with our favourite carols. Being book lovers, we enjoy reading aloud from our collection of Christmas books, our favourites being, "The candle in the Window", "Red Boots for Christmas", "Christian Mother Goose, Rock-a Bye Christmas", and the accounts of the birth of Christ from Matthew and Luke in our King James Bible.

None of these activities cost anything but a little time and fuel, and are much anticipated events for our family. Our little one's get more excited by stories of angels and shepherds than of tales about the big guy in the red suit. After all, remembering that Christ has come, and will come again is the escence for us of what Christmas is all about.

What are some of your yearly Christmas traditions?

Labels: Christian Fellowship, Christmas