As we count down the last few days until Christmas, I’m wrapping presents, baking cookies, and enjoying the leisurely pace of Winter Break. I’m sharing this post I wrote last year about teaching my children about the true meaning of Christmas. Enjoy — and have a lovely holiday!
To me, Christmas is a celebration of family and love. It is reveling in the spirit of peace on earth and goodwill to all humanity. It is about joy and light, compassion and generosity.
It’s important to me that my children understand the meaning of Christmas — what it means as a Christian holiday and what it means to our family. I don’t want Christmas to simply be about presents, leading them to a Cindy Lou Who existential crisis over a holiday that celebrates materialism.
I have so many wonderful memories from my childhood Christmases — spending time with my grandparents, baking cookies, reading the special Christmas books that only came out at the holidays, and driving through the neighborhood to see the lights. The presents certainly were fun, but when I think of Christmases past, it’s the emotion and love and warmth of spirit that I remember. That is what I want to create with my children.
“Every Who down in Who-ville beneath, was busy now, hanging a mistletoe wreath”
One of my favorite parts of Christmas is decorating our house. The December days are cold and dark, but we bring light into our homes.
We’ve made it a tradition to make decorating the house a special night as a family. We play Christmas music while we put up the tree. I love digging through the ornament boxes and breathing in all the memories associated with them ~ the pictures of my children as babies, the ornaments purchased from pre-parenthood travels with my husband, the crafts made in pre-school, and the homemade ornaments from my mother. I treasure this tradition.
“Christmas day will always be, just as long as we have we”
I teach my children that part of the spirit of Christmas is spending time with our family. My childhood Christmases were made special, in part, because it was one of the few times of the year when we spent several days at my grandparents’ house. We gathered with aunts and uncles and extended family and friends. My children are lucky to have grandparents and family near them, and I now cherish that my family that gathered over the years has now expanded, and my children spend their holiday with aunts, uncles, cousins, great aunts and uncles and their great grandmother.
Christmas 2012 ~ Four Generations
“The Grinch’s small heart grew three sizes that day!”
At the entrance to my children’s daycare, there is a large crib filled with presents to donate to local charities. Each year, I explain to my children that there are some kids whose families don’t have enough money to buy them presents, so people buy gifts for them. This year, when we went to the school book fair, we picked out several books to add to the donation crib. We will go to Target and pick out games and toys to donate. My children love finding gifts for other kids, to share the books and toys they love with others.
As we read The Grinch Who Stole Christmas the other night, we stopped and talked about the ending, when all the Whos down in Who-ville sing and celebrate even though their presents are gone. I asked my children what Christmas really was about.
My daughter said, “It’s about being with your family.”
But I think my four-year-old said it best: “It’s not just about you –- it’s about other people too.”
“Welcome Christmas, Bring your light”
We have a special selection of books just for Christmas, and my children get so excited each year when we dig them out and read them together. Even the Grinch teaches them important messages about the meaning of Christmas!
One of my favorites this year is The Christmas Baby, which is a fairly simple telling of the story of the birth of Jesus. I want my children to know the Christian meaning of Christmas, even if it is not how we celebrate it. I love the ending of the book, for {though I realize this bypasses big parts of the Biblical story}, it describes the baby in the manger smiling “at the world with God’s own smile.” When I told my daughter that some people believe that this baby was God, she replied, “Well, if everything is God, then he was!” The book ends with this lovely image, describing the moment the reader was born:
I get that that’s not really the whole birth of the savior meaning of Christmas ~ but I love thinking of Christmas as a celebration of the smile, the Buddha-nature, the divine star dust, in all beings.
For Christmas ultimately is about birth and new beginnings — of new life and the return of the light. We make our homes merry and bright, we gather with loved ones, and we give to others. We celebrate the opportunity to begin again, to allow our hearts to grow, to dream our sweet dreams as we welcome the infinite and precious moments awaiting us in the New Year.
Welcome, Welcome, Christmas Day.Top photo credit: armadillo444 via photopin cc. Modified with permission.
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