What Are Your Holiday Traditions?
Are you ready to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior? As you prepare, I want to encourage every family to be intentional about creating good memories and holiday traditions with your spouse, children, family members and friends. I went to a Christmas fellowship a couple of weeks ago and when the question was asked, “What are your holiday traditions?” Surprisingly, not everyone could answer and not every one had happy memories of the holidays.
It is so important that we create good memories and establish some good traditions. A memory is a mental impression retained. The act or fact of retaining or recalling impressions. What kind of memories do you have of the holidays? A tradition is something that is handed down. you can hand down statements, beliefs, legends, customs, information or any practice from one generation to another. Think about traditions that would promote love, togetherness and that are fun for the family. Most importantly, we should create memories and traditions that promote God’s love, kindness, goodness and that bring honor to God.
I know sometimes you just don’t have the energy to make some things happen, but just press on and think about how it will bless others. Different families have different traditions, here are a few of ours that that we enjoy.
- Decorate a Christmas tree – I get the kids involved in putting ornaments on the tree. I love to listen to Christmas music as we decorate. (The picture above is my Christmas tree).
- Send Christmas cards – We enjoy sending them and receiving them. I also like to decorate with the cards that we receive.
- Go to church on Christmas morning – I love going to God’s house as we celebrate His son’s birthday. What a great way to start the day!
- Bake a Birthday cake for Jesus and sing Happy Birthday Jesus – I love this one. We started this when the kids were younger so that they could remember that it’s Jesus’ birthday.
- Spend time with friends and family – I usually prepare a meal and have family over. The day after Christmas, we go to visit others.
- Cook a special meal – A nice dinner at the table is always a blessing.
- Give gifts – As time and money will permit, I love to give gifts especially to children and those who are less fortunate.
There are so many things that can be done to celebrate the birth of Jesus and spread the love of Christ. Let’s be intentional about creating good memories and making lasting traditions. If you have some bad memories or something that makes the holidays painful, it’s time to do something different. Create some new memories and some good traditions. Find someone that you can bless. Pray and ask God to help you clear out the old, painful or negative memories and give you new, pleasant and meaningful memories. God will do it!
Merry Christmas!
Carolyn
Marriage from A to Z 
Thank you for sharing your traditions with me, even though my finances do not permit me to do the gift givingthis year, I am ever so greatful for what God is doing in my life. I have a roof over our head, food to eat, clothes on our backs, goid health and each other. I have decide to cook a Christmas Dinner the day after Christmas for my family also only because we have been invited out this year. We have a tradition of having a big Christmas breakfast every year, I was so surprised when my daughter came to me and said mom I would like to cook the Christmas breakfast this year so that we can spend time together. This alone has shown me that it is not about the gifts, it’s about spending quality time with each other. May God bless you and your family and Merry Christmas to each of you reading this.