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Three Gifts For Christmas

Christmas is always such a busy time of year for us.  Christmas Day is Buddy's birthday and New Year's Eve is our wedding anniversary.  However, as Christians, the Advent Season leading up to Jesus's birth is a very important time for us.  Ever since Buddy was born with sharing Jesus's birthday, we've struggled to find a good balance between family events and celebrating the birth of our Lord.

I know, I know.  I'm talking about Christmas and it's not even Thanksgiving yet.  But, I know that everyone is starting to think about Christmas.  Golly!  Even the stores have been filled with lights and decorations for Christmas for weeks now.  Thoughts of Christmas are starting to happen around here as well, and a big issue is how to do gifts.  How do you give gifts to your children and other people you love without commercializing this religious holiday?

image from habitsforahappyhome.wordpress.com

For us, we try to do a lot for Advent.  Last year, we started the tradition of an Advent Calendar and an Advent Wreath.  This really helped us to remember what Christmas was all about.


As for Buddy's birthday, we've tried to celebrate it at a different time from our Christmas celebrations (usually early December).  This is difficult though, so I think that next year, we will do a combined birthday celebration with Button's birthday in August.

Finally, there is the gift "problem".  We love our kids, and love giving them gifts.  And, let's face it, they love receiving them.  Yet, we don't want Christmas to be all about the gifts they will be getting.  Last year, though, I read a blog post that really helped me work through this idea yet still keeping with the Christmas spirit.  The idea is basically this - each child gets three gifts for Christmas corresponding with the three gifts that the Magi brought to Jesus.
Every Christmas our five children receive three gifts: one "gold" gift, the big item they are longing for; one "myrrh" gift, which is for their body, such as clothing; and one "frankincense" gift, for their spiritual growth.
I also discovered that Epiphany (celebrated on January 6th) is also known as the Day of the Magi or Three Kings.  In some countries, this is the day that children get gifts, and I like that it is celebrated on a day over a week removed from Christmas.  We won't be celebrating Epiphany in this way, but I find the idea very intriguing.

Of course, our kids will be getting things from their grandparents, but this helps curtail the "gimme, gimmes" and focus on God's greatest gift to us, His Son.

How do you put "Christ" into Christmas?

For more ideas, check out Fisher Academy's upcoming CM carnival on holidays!  As a special bonus, they are hosting a contest for posting about your holiday traditions.  Check it out!
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Comments

  1. ElizabethNovember 11, 2011 at 9:56 PM

    Thanks for a thought-provoking post. I'm going to tumble around both that 3 gifts idea as well as the opening them on Epiphany idea. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. amy in peruNovember 22, 2011 at 7:01 PM

    I like the 3 gift idea too... it hasn't worked for us yet because I can never control who gives our kids gifts, but I'm thinking I could either use St. Nicolas Day (Dec 6th) and postpone the giving of the other gifts until January 6th as I've thought about celebrating Epiphany too. The main thing is that I want to concentrate on Christ and enjoying each other and our guests. How to go about that is rather particular to individual families... and there's not a set formula I suppose.

    anyway, thanks for pondering and posting! it was SO fun to have your post in the CM carnival!!

    amy in peru

    ReplyDelete
  3. Penney DouglasNovember 24, 2011 at 7:02 PM

    We gave gifts after the rest of the country's Christmas last year because we were stuck in a hotel room right up until Christmas Eve with no home to live in. The Lord provided us with a house to rent on Christmas Eve by a miracle. We had no heat and no way to cook except the oven, because the gas wasn't turned on yet, but at least we were out of the hotel. By the way, we have 10 children. We give gifts as a token of how much we love them and desire to give them good gifts just as our heavenly Father loves to give us good gifts. It is very special to our children, because we don't get them much during the year. Actually, we do more than we used to since we have more money now. But they still know that the emphasis of Christmas is celebrating Jesus. Everything in our lives is about Him, so, naturally, the holidays are, too. Gifts are just part of the way we celebrate.

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