For God so loved the world –He gave his Son!
Immanuel –God with us!
And because God is love – he has commanded us to love Him and to love others (Matt 22:36) – not just at Christmas time –but ALL the time!
So I want to give you 15 practical ways to keep Christ in Christ-mas. These 15 ways are not numbered – but the first 9 are in the collage below and the last 6 are in the writing of this post :). I’ve already begun facebooking, tweeting and pinning the tips below on my Women Living Well pages (I invite you to follow along there).
Christmas time is a time when people are open to talk about spiritual things. It’s easy to invite family or a friend to church or to a choir concert. A couple years back, I invited a little boy from my son’s football team and his mom, to our church concert. It was easy – and they came! And I’ll never forget when the mom walked in – she said, “my son just asked what that thing is, up on top of the church,and I told him a cross.”
The little boy did not know what a cross was! I love that Christmas is a chance to introduce people to Christ in a natural way.
I’ve also given out Bibles or devotionals at Christmas time to baggers at the grocery store, women at the salon, and to neighbors. It seems to be a natural time to give something spiritual as a gift. Come January 15th, if I handed someone a Bible they might think that was odd or offensive.
Another thing we do at Christmas time to remind our children to share the love of Christ – is our Jesus stocking.
We have 4 white stockings hanging on our fireplace and then a special one that is royal red. It’s a stocking fit for a King – King Jesus! During the month of December, I invite my children to put gift money or chore money into the stocking and then, right before Christmas we give it to a charity. Last year, we donated toward a well in Africa. I love how this hangs on our mantel as a daily reminder of the presence of Jesus – our 5th member of the family, in our house.
Need a resource for some ideas of ways you can light up your community with the Kindness of Christ?
Courtney DeFeo (great first name right? 😉 ) has created a list of 100 ways here:
She includes ideas like:
Stage an early morning chalk attack. Pick a street – yours or another! – and write a “good morning” or “have a great day” message on every driveway.
or
Stand outside your child’s classroom and give each child a single flower as they walk in. Then, as the children enter the classroom, have them hand the flower to their teacher. By the time class begins, he or she will have a vase full of flowers!
or
Try to find out when your child’s FRIEND has a game or performance coming up. Surprise him or her by attending and bringing a poster or other fun ways to cheer them on.
I love these!
Remember, this is not just for the holiday season. ALL YEAR LONG – spread the love of Christ. We are the light of the world!
I have one more family tradition that didn’t fit in this post – so I’ll write more about this next week. Until then, have a GREAT weekend with your family and friends and remember –shine sistas –and teach your little ones to do the same!
Walk with the King,
Courtney
I LOVE the Jesus stocking! May have to start that at our house! Thanks for your wonderful posts, ideas, enthusiasm for Jesus and for sharing your heart with us. It’s so appreciated. I am not normally a poster but had to let you know you are appreciated!
I agree about the Jesus stocking. What a cool way to teach that Christmas is not just about receiving gifts! I’m living in Africa for the next two years and God has really been working on my heart about how blessed we are in America. I love organizations like Operation Christmas Child that help needy children still have a Christmas present. After the children got into a fight over toys I was told by the owner of the preschool I help out at that for most of the children the only time they see toys is when they go to school. Their parents cannot afford to buy them any toys.
I LOVE your ideas. the Christmas stocking is wonderful. My favorites are praying over ther Christmas card and gift list folks. Will definitely incorporate those ideas. And singing with the kiddos? Perfect way to wrap presents. (Or pack boxes for Operation Christmas Child!) Thank you for sharing and Merry Christmas!
Awesome!!! Love these ideas, thanks for sharing sis!! Let our lights so shine effort men!
Blessings,
Adrienne
I also love the stocking idea, never thought of putting something out to put in monies as the month goes. I am thinking maybe of trying this as a whole year project. Good thoughts
It’s amazing how I miss simple things sometimes. I will definitely be praying over every card I write. Thank you for the whole list!
I LOVE the first tip about opening your Bible to Luke 2. I’m going to do that as soon as I get home tonight, and place it right beside my nativity scene!
I love the idea of the Jesus stocking! I have yet to get the family stockings monogramed so I am thinking lowercase for all of us and uppercase for JESUS!
I also can’t wait to get Luke 2 into our Nativity scene!
Hi! I’ve been following your blog for over 2 years now and you’ve helped me through a lot of crazy times and questions. I needed you and God helped me find you 🙂 I am now very strong in my beliefs and my faith even though at times I can’t remember the last time I studied the Word. I’ve been in a lull lately, but now I’m fully thrown in to standing up for my beliefs and I’m hoping for some insight.
Our country school has changed everything over to Winter. Christmas and Santa have been banned from our elementary school. I have a 6,4, and a 2 year old that will be attending this school. We are a school of 5 farming communities and I find this ridiculous. Two of the small schools around us, one my husband and I attended, still celebrate Christmas. Most likely there is no baby Jesus in their halls, but it is called Christmas just the same. I was alone last night at the PTO meeting in my speaking against this. There were talks from others at a special meeting we had over this and no one else spoke up. We need prayer because I just can’t stop on this. I don’t know much about the laws, but our principal said it was a federal law that we cannot promote one religion over another. But, even atheist celebrate Christmas and call it Christmas. I’m contacting some school board members to find out what we can do, but I need prayer. I feel quite alone even though I have other parents telling me this bothers them too, but they are not publicly coming forward.
I cannot stand down on this, but I’m feeling overwhelmed and angry. So, I guess the point of this is for prayer support and any other advice on this you can offer me.
I will be praying for you. Remember that God is in control. Hope that others speak up and seek God’s wisdom!
Amanda – just want you to know that I prayed for you this morning. I pray that the peace of God fills your heart as you pursue glorifying him. May you sense his presence.
Lots of Love,
Courtney
My heart goes out to you and to our country as a whole. I am glad you spoke out about this and I will include you in my prayers. It is important that we continue to stand up for our rights to worship. All other religions besides those that follow Christ continue to have the right to worship. It seems that our rights are quickly being taken away from us, as Christians. Please continue to pray and most importantly speak out, because Christ helps those who help themselves.
Blessings,
Kelly Howard
Love the flowers idea for the teacher idea! My son’s teacher has a difficult group of children this year and I think this would be perfect. Now I wonder if they’d let me do this before school one morning..hmm…I’ll have to ask.
I love sending out Christmas Cards. It’s not something everyone does anymore, especially with the rising cost of postage. I got all mine done last night and included an extra one for someone special 😉
We do a Stocking for Jesus as well. We put notes of acts of kindness, goodness, forgiveness, sharing, love that we shared with someone during the day. Explaining everything on Earth is his, he created, so needs no material gifts. Just as his gifts to us are more than material things such as forgiveness, mercy, joy, peace, love, etc.
Love these! Thanks for sharing!!
You are such a blessing for me , I dearly love all your precious thoughts , May God Bless you and your family .Merry Christmas for you and your loved ones ..Shalom , Poppie
I love each and every one of your ideas, they are all so precious… But I must admit, I got teary eyed at the Jesus stocking. I absolutely LOVE that!!!! Beautiful!!!!
What a wonderful idea!
How about instead of trying to keep Christ in Christmas we try to keep Christ in Christian?