This is Week 3 of the Simplify the Season series.
Happy Monday! I hope everyone had an awesome Thanksgiving weekend celebrating with your loved ones! I also hope that your weekend wasn’t too overtaken by the crazy consumerism of Black Friday!
I was really surprised on the first week of the Simplify the Season series when I ran the giveaway for A Simpler Season that so many of you said that your biggest struggle during the Holidays is simplifying your gift giving. I guess as our family has walked away, over the past few years, from the over-spending and over-giving of our previous Christmases, (mostly because of living on such a tight budget, not because we’re saints or something) that I almost forget what a strong pull our consumerist culture has over this season.
As I said, we live on such a tight budget that we simply don’t have the option of going crazy and buying tons of gifts and over-spending for Christmas. It wasn’t something that was an intentional choice at first, it was out of necessity due to our financial situation, but now, even if we had the means to buy tons of presents for our kids and each other, we would still choose to keep our Christmas simple and Christ focused. What we have learned through our situation, is that we are so much happier with fewer, more intentional gifts, and we are able to devote most of our time during this season focusing on the True meaning of Christmas.
So, I’m thinking that for the remainder of the Simplify the Season series, we’re going to talk about ways that we can simplify our gift giving so that we can purposefully move away from the pull that our consumer culture has over this season and give it back to the One who is the Greatest Gift the world has ever received. Can you get on board with that, with me?
A Different Way of Doing Christmas
I read a post over the weekend, The Christmas Conundrum at Jen Hatmaker’s blog, and I want to strongly, strongly urge you to head over there and read the post because it is so good, and so much better at saying some of the many things that I have in my head, but have trouble putting into words.
Read the post, and then I’ll tell you a little bit about what we do for our family. It is a long post, so if you click over to read it and don’t come back to finish this post, I’m okay with that – it’s that good.
Jesus not Santa
Oh, this is the hardest one, isn’t it?! No Santa??! How could we? But, we decided when our daughter was still a baby that we were not going to include Santa in our Christmas celebrations. In fact, when our daughter was 15 months old she called Santa, “Noah”, because that was the only man she knew with white hair and a big white beard.
Not doing Santa means that we don’t have to keep up with the story of making our kids believe that Santa is real, year after year. There’s no judgement from me if that is something that you choose to do, but we have let that go, and I feel like it has made our Christmas simpler.
Now of course, our kids both know who Santa is, and are obviously drawn to the idea of him. We were watching the Macy’s parade on TV on Thanksgiving morning with all of the build up at the end for the arrival of Santa, and the kids were so excited.
But there was something the announcers said that gave me pause, it was basically that every different country and culture around the world loves Santa, and that he unites us together and lives in all of our hearts. Wait a minute? Isn’t that Jesus’ place? Isn’t that what we want our kids to learn and believe about Jesus, not Santa? And as Jen said in her post,
For a five-year-old, how can Jesus compete with Santa? Our children don’t have spiritual perspective; when faced with the choice of allegiance, they have a baby in a manger, or they can get a jolly, twinkling, flying character who will bring them presents. This is going to be an easy choice for them.
So, we don’t tell our kids that Santa is not real, because they are young enough that we don’t want them to say something impulsive and ruin it for their friends. What we say in our family is that we celebrate Jesus at Christmas, not Santa. And when our kids are asked about Santa from everyone around them they can just simply answer, “We don’t celebrate Santa.” And if they want to say more about it than that, it’s up to them.
Also, we haven’t yet talked to the kids about Saint Nicholas and explained who he was, the way that Jen talks about in her post. Because our kids are more and more aware and intrigued by Santa now, I think that is something we’ll definitely include for them this year.
Celebrating Jesus
I have to say that I am so, so grateful for the internet and all of the amazing ideas that abound for keeping Christ at the center of Christmas! I’ve gotten so many ideas from other amazing parents that I never could have come up with on my own.
Last year we used The Truth in the Tinsel to read Bible passages and make ornaments that helped us to focus on waiting for the arrival of Baby Jesus. We didn’t do one everyday, because that was a little overwhelming to me (remember how uncrafty I am), but the great thing about the book is that it has alternate schedules so you can still get so much out of it even if you aren’t able to use the book every day.
I also really like the idea of doing a Jesse Tree, but that requires more planning then I’ve been able to put in recently, with being pregnant last year and having a young baby this year. I really love The Truth in the Tinsel so much that I think we’ll save the Jesse Tree for when the kids are a few years older.
Last year, I found the idea of Shephard’s Pouches on Pinterest and would love to start this tradition with our family this year!
And last but not least, since the kids love celebrating birthdays so much, and of course also love cake, we started a tradition of making a birthday cake for Jesus on Christmas Eve last year. It was a huge hit last year and we can’t wait to do it again this year.
So that’s a little bit about what we are trying to do as a family to keep Christ in front of us as the reason that we celebrate Christmas.
Now it’s your turn, I’d love to hear what traditions you have established for keeping your focus on Jesus throughout the Christmas Season, or if this is something that you have struggled with. Let’s have a respectful and meaningful conversation in the comments. I can’t wait to hear your thoughts!
Read all the posts in the Simplify the Season series.
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Thank you for sharing! We do the same thing with our son every year. We also add in a gift for Jesus which is a goat and 2 chickens from World Vision. We also only do 3 gifts each, since the 3 wisemen only brought Jesus 3 gifts. We started that last year, and even thought we spent a little over $50 on him, we had the happiest little boy who enjoyed celebrating Jesus’s birthday!
Oh, I like the idea of having a gift for Jesus! I love looking through the World Vision catalog and wish I could give everything in there!
I read that post too and thought it was great! We also did a birthday cake for Jesus last year and Charlotte’s already been planning how she wants to decorate our cake for Jesus this year! I also love reading good children’s Christmas books with the kids that have a focus on the real meaning of Christmas. It is hard to compete with all the Santa stuff though!
It is so hard to compete with the Santa stuff. This weekend my daughter said, “Mom, I like Santa, but it’s okay because I love Jesus more.” 🙂 What’s your favorite children’s Christmas book?
So sweet…seems like she has the right idea! I just wrote a post about some of my favorite Christmas books! One is Annika’s Secret Wish–probably not one many have heard of but I like it because it’s about a Swedish tradition that we also do every year and it has a good message. I also like Song of the Stars by Sally Lloyd-Jones–talks about all of creation anticipating Jesus’ birth. Really beautiful. And The King’s Christmas List has a good message as well.
I actually just wrote about accept Santa (within limitations). While we intend to focus our holiday season on Jesus, as it should be, we will allow our children to believe in Santa if they choose for as long as they need to because (and I’m speaking of children under the age of 5 or so) young children can more easily grasp the importance of a flying man bring presents than a baby in a manger bringing the greatest gift of all! This won’t always be the case – when they’re old enough (probably in that kindergarten/1st grade age) we’ll start explaining about St. Nicholas and really start to get into the importance of Jesus when they are able to understand it more fully (because we want them to have a faith that is their own and not just a faith that done because it’s what mom and dad say). But in the mean time I don’t want to limit their imaginations because we feel like that a child’s believe in the fantastical can easily develop into adults faith in the mysterious (talking “mysteries of faith” here).
That all being said we don’t plan on pushing Santa on our kids – if they want to believe in Santa for a while as young children then we’ll play along (like a game of make believe) until we feel like they are ready to take the next step in fully understanding their faith!
Every family is different though and it’s always good to hear new ideas from others! We’re currently readjusting our focus for our holiday season to include the full deal – Advent thru Epiphany along with some of the fun Feast Days like Sts. Nicholas, Lucy, Stephen, etc.
Hi Molly,
Thanks for your thoughtful response! I really like what you said about how a child’s belief in the fantastical can develop into faith in the mysterious. Such a good point, and something that a lot of adults do have trouble with believing in and understanding!
I also like the idea of extending the holiday season to include the Epiphany and feast days! I’ve been thinking lately about how our family can better include some of those things into our celebrations and traditions.
Love these ideas! My husband & I have only been married one year but we agreed even before we got married that when/if God gives us children we are not doing “Santa”. I have a feeling some family will strongly oppose our choice but hoping they surprise us & accept our choice. Jesus is big enough to have the day all the Himself!!! I never liked sitting on Santa’s lap at the mall as a child anyway. It was creepy for some reason. And I really hate that my childhood memories of Christmas are not of only Christ, but of gifts. Thinking of gifts, wanting gifts, asking for gifts, being so happy I got SO MANY “awesome” gifts. And I’m so ashamed but I’m just being totally honest. That’s how I remember childhood Christmas’. So that’s a huge motivator for me. I don’t want my kids to be focused on gifts or self as I was. Thanks for posting & Merry Christmas! 🙂
I think it’s so good that you’re thinking through this before you have kids Ashley! And I have some memories of gifts too, but my favorite and most special memories are not about the gifts at all. I think you’ll like today’s post about making memories with your family that are more important than the gifts.
http://www.liverenewed.com/2012/12/simplify-the-season-making-memories.html
Thank you so much for sharing that post. Wow, it so summed up the feelings my husband and I have about Christmas. We want Jesus to be the center of Christmas, not gifts or Santa.
Our oldest is just 2.5 so we haven’t established any traditions with him but this year we brought out the Little People Nativity first. We’re talking to the boys (2.5 and 11 months) about Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the wise men and reading nativity centered stories.
We’ll put up the tree sometime in the next few days but the tree, for us, is not the symbol that the Christmas season has arrived.
As for presents, we live in a small home and are minimal so we’ve always kept it simple at Christmas. This year we decided to give each boy a small present (wooden puzzle and box of 3 piece puzzles) and then we’re doing a stocking (or present sock according to my 2.5 year old). The stocking will be from mama and daddy, not Santa, and wil be filled with a few small gifts like a shirt, toothbrushes, toddler snacks, art supplies, etc.
Sounds like you’re doing a great job Rachel! Thanks for sharing!
I read Jen’s post this weekend, too–and WOW: Best Christmas post I’ve read in a long time! I am planning on doing Truth in the Tinsel with my girls. Too often, I get overwhelmed trying to do TOO many things at Christmas and then just throw my hands in the air, give up and do NOTHING well. Thanks for these great reminders, Emily!! 🙂
Yes, I can easily get overwhelmed, and that’s one thing I love about Truth in the Tinsel it’s so nice because I don’t feel like I HAVE to do it every day and my kids will still enjoy it and get something out of it.
We’re just learning about this process too. We’ve never played up Christmas except for our big trip to visit family and celebrate it with them, and this is the first year our son has even noticed Santa Claus. So I’m thinking about how to do that. And you’re right, as we were reading a Christmas book last night, I realized that competition thing between a baby and a jolly gift-giver… lots to think about! Thanks for this post, It helps.
Also, about gift-giving, this is the first year we’ve felt like we can actually buy nice gifts for people, and I think we’re enjoying going the extra mile because we both love giving gifts. But you’re right, I see how it can get out of control.
I do agree with you about giving gifts when it’s one of your love languages and you haven’t been able to do it for a while. There are times that I do wish that we could give nicer gifts for extended family, and I think once we have the resources we probably will to some extent, but I still think it’s about giving gifts with intentionality, which it sounds like you guys are doing. 🙂 I hope you have a Merry Christmas!
I feel like if it wasn’t for all the obligatory gifts I have to give friends and extended family, I’d be able to focus on Christ and my family with less stress. I mean, I love friends and extended family, but that’s a huge list! So I do what I call ‘one size fits all’ gifting–making or buying multiples of things I know will work to give to all my sis-in-laws, sisters, moms, and bffs, and my nieghbor. (I’m from a big family, so that’s over a dozen people to start with!) I years past I have done homemade vanilla, felt flower pins, and simple handbeaded necklaces. This year I think I’m doing vanilla again, because it was soooo easy, and people ravved about it all year and have been hinting all year they wanted it again. lol This one, pleases-everyone gift does a lot to simplify my Christmas gifting allowing me to focus on my family and our values at Christmas.