Keeping Christ in Christmas

I wanted to share how our family is trying to create traditions to make sure Christ stays the center of our Christmas celebrations. It's always neat to find things to incorporate into our family traditions. Maybe you'll find some of this helpful. My cousin Kelly had some great ideas on her blog too. You can check her out here. Kelly is super creative and always has great ideas that are inexpensive and fun. Thanks Cuz!

We started our day by reading the Bible and sharing the story of Christ birth with our children. At 10 months Josiah probably has no clue what we're talking about, but he and Eden are learning to sit and listen to the words of God. Actually, most of what we do with them is over their level of understanding, and that's OK. Our prayer is that they will grow to love these traditions and the Savior who they are intended to glorify.

We have a large wall Advent calendar that I got at Kaplans. (I think it was a seasonal item. I have been unable to find it online. If your interested in it e-mail me and I'll try to find it) It has neat things under each flap that give a scripture for a child to read or a craft activity. Super cute!

We also have The Story of Christmas Book Set and Advent Calendar and Family Life Adorenaments. (The Amazon prices are crazy high, I got them much much cheaper) Eden has enjoyed both of these. Josiah likes to chew on them :) The book set has little books that can be read each day as an advent calendar and can be hung as ornaments on your tree. The Adorenaments have some of the characteristics of Jesus' life like, King of Kings, The Good Shephard, and Savior. Each of the ornaments have the story in scripture where they come from as well as a book to read. Both have been great sources of Truth and fun for Eden. She looks forward to me bringing them out each day.

This is one of my favorite ornaments.

It was given to us by a sweet church member and helps sum up the reason for the season.

We also have a birthday cake for Jesus. I know this looks a little ghetto, but it was yummy!

Amy, this is the carrot cake recipe that I got from you at Thanksgiving.

Thanks so much. It was delicious.

We put the same color candles on our cake as we did the advent candles at church. The three purple candles represent hope, peace, and love. The pink candle represent joy, and the white candle is the Christ candle.

We love our little traditions and hope that our children will grow to love them as well.

What kind of traditions do you do to celebrate Christmas?