Christmas, Christmas Time is Here

How have we been alive for thirty something years and still don't get that Christmas comes right after Thanksgiving?

Last night was the first night of advent.  As usual, we realized it mid morning and did our traditional, "oh crap.  Advent starts tonight."

Nothing was ready.  No wreath.  No candles.  Nothing.

We're slowly learning that we don't have to have all the decorations, cute calendars, or a ton of Christmas decorations to celebrate our favorite holiday of the year.  Good thing right?  Because this year in Haiti we don't hardly have any of those things.  Last night we found our trusty advent study online, and Aaron made a makeshift candle holder out of a potato and candles we bought off the street.  We've taken ghetto to a whole new level.

I've written a great deal about our Christmas traditions, so instead of rewriting our thoughts I'll simply give a brief run down with a bunch of links.  If you're a young family, or you're rethinking your Christmas traditions this year maybe our journey towards trying to keep Christ at the center of this holiday will be helpful.  Or maybe you'll read what we've written and hate all of it.  Either way...we're simply throwing this stuff out there as food for thought and we're certainly not trying to suggest that every home celebrate Christmas Hendrick style (as in, I hope no one else in the world has a potato candle sitting on their coffee table).

I love how people who belong to God have freedom to go to scripture and ask God for wisdom about how to best lead their families to honor the Lord.  Let me be very clear:  These are our thoughts.  With fear and a lot of trembling, (and a hint of irritable bowel syndrome) we're attempting to raise our kids to know God and love Him deeply.  We fail at that a great deal.  Praise God for grace.  So far, the things we're writing about are where we are in this journey, trying to take God's Word and apply it to everything in our lives...Christmas included.  We still have a lot to learn, so we don't share these thoughts as experts.  That would be pee your pants hilarious.  Instead, we share these things because we believe it is always good to hear from others about the way scripture is shaping their lives.  Hearing how other believers are living out their convictions is one of our favorite things about the body of Christ.  We for sure don't share these thoughts on Christmas to judge anyone or to come across like we're trying to tell you how to raise your children or how to celebrate this holiday.  Please.  We're so unsure about what we're doing as a couple to disciple our own kids most days, believe us...we aren't ready to take on your family and try to tell you how to run it.  No thanks.

And now for the slew of Christmas thoughts...

-----SANTA----- 

He's rarely mentioned in our house in December. Gasp.  We don't pull a Harry Potter and refer to Santa as "He who should not be named."  He's just not a big deal in Hendrickville.

Some links to read if you're rethinking Santa or just want to read them and get mad:

Things we thought through as we decided whether or not to keep Santa or give him the big, red, furry boot (that post here.)

Thoughts about Santa from people way smarter than us (that post here).

A few years ago we looked around our life and our home and had to admit something sad.  We celebrate this holiday just like the world celebrates this holiday.  We say it's about Jesus, but in reality it's about presents, stress, and spending too much money on things we don't even need.  We kicked Santa out.  We reduced our spending greatly.  I'm sure the last gift Jesus wants on His birthday is for His kids to go into debt when He's already told us not to be in debt or owe any man anything.  Giving Jesus debt on His birthday would be like asking your spouse what they hate and then getting them that exact thing on their birthday.  We quit spending so much.

Going into debt to buy things we didn't even need was even harder to justify when we considered the way the rest of the world lives.  We tried to remember that without one single gift on Christmas day, we already had way more stuff than anyone actually needs.  We wanted to let that reality soak into our brains, to declare the truth loudly in our souls...we are blessed, we have way too much, and most people in the world have nothing.  How can that truth change us?  How can it change the way we live?  How can it change the way we view Christmas?

We got busy weeding our Christmas traditions, yanking out all the trash.

Then I started freaking out a little.  We stripped a lot of distracting things out of our December but I started feeling like one of "those people" who act like the Christian life is this big long list of don'ts.  We took off a lot of stuff, but what we were left with was a depressing, blah December.

One of the things I want to be remembered for when I die is being someone who looked for all the life God is offering us in His Word.  I never want anyone to think of me, or our family and remember us as the people who could not do this or who could not do that.  How terrible.  If that were ever true, I believe our family would have been misrepresenting the gospel drastically.  The Bible paints a picture of the Christian life as being full and vibrant, not stripped down and bland.  Certainly not filled with a long, legalistic list of "thou shalt nots".  Instead, overflowing with things to put on, to run after, to pursue, to love, and to cherish.

I want to be remembered as someone who was pursuing life, soaking in the goodness of God, a person looking for ways to be involved in all the beauty God is busy creating, someone seeking His Kingdom.  I want to love life and savor the richness of what God is offering His children in the Bible and through the life of His Son.  I also want to be remembered as someone who was a wicked awesome hip hop dancer.  In my mind, that's true. In reality, it is...not. true.

We looked at our Christmas traditions a few years ago and had to admit.  We were "those people."  No Santa.  No excessive shopping.  No debt.  Very little commercialism.  We stripped away a lot of junk...junk that needed to go, but we knew we needed to replace all those empty distractions with something else...with life...joy...generous giving...and worship.  We opened up God's Word looking for the life...where is it God?  What do you want us to decorate our lives with this holiday season?

Taking all the yuck out of the holiday did not make me love Christmas.  I still sort of hated it.  We were missing all the good that God wanted to give us until we began to savor the beauty of the Christmas story.

---ADVENT---

We started celebrating Advent.  We're Baptist, and advent is not a Baptist thing.  I was a little leery.  Come to find out, Advent has nothing to do with a denomination.  It simply means a time of waiting...of preparing our hearts for the Lord.  All month long we celebrate Advent with our family in the evenings, telling the greatest story ever told, singing songs, and praying.  It's a sweet time of focus on the gospel and God's faithfulness during the month of December.  When Christmas Day arrives, our hearts are literally full to overflowing with the wonder of the Christmas story.  Yes. Rock on.  This is what we have always wanted for our family.  If Advent had hands, we'd high five it.

We started Advent last night.  I always wish it was a holy event in our home.  That's always the way I imagine it.  The reality is we have four boys and my husband is a major male.  Last night the boys acted like idiots, said ridiculous things, Aaron sang Oh Come Oh Come Emmanuel like the Crash Test Dummies, and we had a potato candle holder.  Totally dumb.  There are times when advent makes me want to cry and run away from home because the men in my house never fail to act like cavemen.  These are also times when I'm reminded of how thankful I am for Emmanuel, God with us.  He came here, among people like us...males who do ridiculous things and a mother who snaps at all of the men in her house because they are "ruining everything."

We do this advent study.  It's four nights a week.  We read the study, sing some songs, then we pray.  We don't sing the songs they suggest, because we don't know all of them.  We use some of them, just not all of them.  We add in other songs that we know and that have solid truth in them that we want our kids to remember about the Christmas Story.  All you need for advent are five candles.  Four smaller ones that are all the same color and then one big one in the middle that is a different color.  Here's an example of a fancy advent wreath.  Ours looks nothing like that picture.


If you're wondering what the heck advent is and what this all means...here's an old post that explains.

---SHOPPING---

Instead of spending less, we decided we were going to start spending more...on things that matter.  We've tried over the past few years to work towards a 100% Fair Trade Christmas.  This also makes shopping 100% guilt free.  Instead of harming others with our purchases, we get to be a part of something redemptive.  Shopping fair trade (even making one fair trade purchase) this holiday season will free many families from the bondage of slavery and intense poverty.  We have loved the unique, well-made gifts we have been able to buy over the last few years.  It makes shopping feel like worship.  More on fair trade this week.  Those posts are long overdue.

--BEST CHRISTMAS MUSIC EVER--

(Don't even try to argue with us.  You'll lose.)

Andrew Peterson's Behold the Lamb CD.  More info here.  It's earthy.  It tells the story of Christmas and starts way back in Genesis (where the Christmas story actually begins).  This is a work of art and will be on "repeat" in the Hendrick house until January 1.  If you buy this album and sit and listen to it, you'll write me an email thanking me for this post.  For reals.

---OTHER FUN LINKS---

We're die hard fans of touchable nativities.

My friend Kirby is way crafty and every one of her traditions are precious.  You should check out her posts:

Wonderful countdown to Christmas calendar for kids that includes books here.

Kirby's other fantastically cute ideas for advent/Christmas here. Kirby has little kids, so she offers other ideas for simple advent studies.

We're making candle holders out of dough tonight, because the potato will work for a little while, but over my dead body is this thing sticking around much longer.  I got the dough idea from my friend, Mandi. Check out her blog to see the finished product.

My most favorite book about Christian traditions...Treasuring God in our Traditions by Noel Piper.  It's not just about Christmas.  It's a beautiful book about the importance of traditions (big or little) in the life of a family.  Every mom will love it.  It's all about the heart behind our traditions, not about how to implement them necessarily.  So whether you are crafty or not this book is a treasure for thinking through traditions and looking for ways to constantly point our kids to the gospel.

---BOTTOM LINE---

We want our holiday season to be filled with longing...excitement and anticipation as we remember what it must have been like for the people of Israel to wait for the promised Messiah. We want to focus our hearts and minds on the fact that we are still waiting...right now, longing for the return of our King. He's coming back again!

We want the Christmas story and characters to come to life in our home in all of their richness...the wise men, the shepherds...Mary, Joseph...the prophecies that were fulfilled, every last one of them and point our kids towards a faithful God who keeps His promises. God said He would come the first time and Christmas teaches us that He is faithful. Which means...He is going to come again.

We want to dive into scripture this month and learn about God's character...his love...his servant heart, and then ask the Lord to help us be more like Him.

Even with a potato sitting on my coffee table, I'm super excited about the start of this season.