Our Christmas Eve Traditions

It’s Christmas Eve! I hope you are gathered close with your loved ones today.

We’ve been celebrating all week long in our family. We’ve had our oldest son and his wife home all week, and it has been wonderful having our entire crew together. They’ll head back to their home in Knoxville today to be with her family.

The years go by so fast, and our little ones are grown before you know it! Today, I’m thinking of Christmases past and some of the Christmas traditions we’ve shared with our kids as they were growing up. Baking for neighbors, riding around looking at Christmas lights, visits to Santa, and decorating Christmas cookies and gingerbread houses are many of the wonderful memories we have with our children.

On Christmas Eve, we always attend Christmas Eve service, and then gather with my mother-in-law’s large extended family for a Christmas Eve meal.

When we return home new pjs are part of the Christmas Eve tradition, and before bed we read Luke 2 together as a family.

We have three children, and there is a 10 year age gap between our middle and youngest, so we’ve had to be creative through the years coming up with family activities that are appropriate for the wide age span of our kids.

Years ago, when our daughter, who is the youngest, was a toddler, my husband came up with a creative way for us to read the Christmas story from Luke.

He divided up Scripture passages and assigned them to each of us. Caroline, who was too young to read, was assigned the job of moving the appropriate nativity piece into place as that Scripture passage was read. She loved it, and loved being included!

Those years of re-enactment are long past now; however, we do continue to keep our focus on what this holiday is all about — the birth of our Savior.

Jesus, Immanuel, God with us — the hope of the world who entered our pain and hurt and loss, and took on flesh to experience it alongside us. Who overcame the darkness with His light, and through Him we can have hope for eternity. That’s some awfully Good News — news that is worthy of celebrating.