Christmas Traditions

Hello all. Hope you are all doing well this wonderful Christmas season. Of course today is the day after Christmas (Boxing Day in the UK).

I saw on Wonder Woman Wannabe's blog that she had a Christmas tradition Link Party. I missed it! But it did inspire me to write about some of the traditions the hubster and I are starting.

We are not your typical American family. We have a few traditions that most people think is bizarre and really no one gets it unless the Lord has led them to do the same thing.

1. We do not give material gifts, we give presence, acts of service, charitable donations, etc. We do not give things that are tangible. This is our first year to cut ties with the material side of Christmas. It was a little rough at first for the family members to understand when we broke the news. We decided not to give anything this year so people can be accustomed when we give a card next year saying "a donation was made...." or "this year I will help you clean your garage...". If we are celebrating Jesus' birth we want to give Him presents in the form of love, kindness, servitude, etc. I don't get presents on my sister's birthday, do I? For us this isn't any different.

2. We don't do Santa. Period.

3. We celebrate Jesus' birth with no worldly distractions. We want Him to be our focus! Our ONLY focus! I read in another blog when I was struggling to explain our Christmas traditions something that made a whole lot of sense. She was quoting a woman who wrote a book about Christianity and Christmas. If people from a foreign country were to come into your house at Christmas time and they had never heard of the name Jesus, would they know who you served by looking at your decorations? If Santa, Reindeers or Frosty is plastered all over will they get that I am celebrating the birth of my Lord and Savior?

4. We love looking at Christmas lights. There is one street in particular in our area that is EPIC! We love it though because so many people put so much hard work and heart into those decorations.

5. We bake cookies for the fire and police departments in the area as a Thank You for serving our community all year long.

I'm sure there are plenty of other family traditions that we will start in the years to come and as we add to our family. I'm sure our house will be the most popular among the secular set, lol. We aren't here to be popular, we are here to serve the Lord. That's all we want in our lives.