A Christian Christmas

[FuzzyPuffling]

Hello fellow Christians,
Christmas these days is so full of presents, food and family ( nowt wrong with that) but what do you do to offset the materialism and bring Christmas back to the birth of Jesus?

We don't start too soon, so Advent gets its proper place as a season of preparation and prayer.
Gifts have a budget, not to be mean, but to be thoughtful.
We have a plain wooden nativity set of many years standing that has pride of place in our decorations.
We always listen to the service of 9 lessons and carols from King's.
And of course, church on Christmas Day!
And a season full of love and wonder!

We did this too, when the children were wee. Hearing their little voices singing,
“Happy Birthday, dear Jesus!” always had me filling up. 🥹

I love carols, particularly medieval ones.

I always hear new ones every so often. Last year's work carol service had 'Masters in the Hall' which had a Marin Marais' French tune and William Morris' lyrics. I was really taken with it. I also love Lauridsen's O Magnum Mysterium.

I listen to a chapter of Luke’s Gospel read by David Suchet every day of December- ending on Christmas Eve.

It helps me to focus on the wonder and meaning of our Lord’s incarnation.

Here’s Chapter One:

Our church has a large wooden model of a pregnant Mary, on a donkey.

During December, Mary (and the unborn baby Jesus) travels around the community and takes refuge at a different house each night. My kids love having Mary to 'stay' and we light a candle, say a little prayer and talk about the Christmas story before sending her on to the next family. Finally on Christmas eve she returns to the church for the next chapter.

It's a really lovely way to remind ourselves of the very human element of Christmas, as well as bringing the church community together.

I love Lauridsen's "Mag Myst" so much we had it at our wedding. In June.

Well, I reckoned most people wouldn't know it was an Advent thing!

We embrace Christmas and sing carols and decorate from early December, but we also embrace Advent. I have all my shopping done by the end of November so that I can relax during Advent rather than being waylaid and distracted by lists of things to do and buy. Our DC (all teens and adults now) never did Christmas lists - they just got what they were given and the gifts were always generous but not over the top because we never wanted it to be the focus. The gifts were always (as much as possible) intentionally chosen rather than just gifts for the sake of gifts.

We follow the tenets of Advent Conspiracy to structure our Advent season and help us to keep our eyes and hearts focused on what really matters:

• Worship Fully
• Spend Less
• Give More
• Love All

We are intentional about filling our time and our spaces with worship - whether that’s sung worship, prayer, times with other people or times of silence and contemplation. (It’s one of my main reasons for finishing shopping early so that I have time to enjoy a walk in creation, or read a book, or worship with my hands by creating favourite baked goods)

The Spend Less tenet is all about not buying for the sake of buying - not getting sucked into consumerism - being intentional with gift giving. Something we’ve always done as a family.

Give More is about finding ways to be generous - with our time, our talents and our resources - including our finances - but not by buying meaningless tat. We have a charity we support throughout the year and we give a specific Advent offering every year too. We also sponsor a child in Uganda and we give intentional Christmas gifts to her and her family too. We also seek ways to be generous to friends or neighbours - little things which bring joy and hope and comfort.

Love All also ties in with that and is about widening your circle during Advent and seeking ways to demonstrate the love of Jesus to all people.

In terms of decorations, we do decorate for Christmas in early December and I like the phrase which I heard a few years ago “decorate the darkness” and I think there’s something really beautiful about that - we are called to be lights in the darkness and Christmas lights do indeed bring joy in the dark nights of winter so we participate in that.

I really love these ideas

To be honest Fuzzy initially I didn't know it was a Christmas carol! Mind you I'd be quite happy to have Christmas cake with marzipan as a wedding cake.

I've just thought making gingerbread guardian angels would be nice

Has anyone mentioned the advent candles marked off in days (alas, again always 25, but that will work this year) where the idea is to burn down a day's worth at a time. I find it works well, and lighting one at breakfast and dinner burns down just enough - and I can keep an eye on the candle.

I must have a look at my advent calendar and see what readings it gives - I've used it for years, and always read the verses aloud. I'm pretty sure Isaiah features.

@DeanElderberry I love the idea of those candles, but I KNOW it would become a chore for me to sit and watch exactly when it hit the little line to blow it out. We do light Advent candles at home though - I buy the chunky candles so they can be burnt all through the week and even the first one lasts the full 4 weeks. note to self - must get out to buy the candles in the next couple of weeks

I have one of those advent candles, and yes I usually either forget to light it, or let it burn too long!

I've tried the countdown candles a few times, but I've never managed to get more than 5 days in before messing up. It's too high pressure for me to both remember to burn it every day and remember not to burn it too much any day!

We always listen to the Advent service from St John’s ( Cambridge). It’s on Radio Three. We can’t make it to a real one now, but that’s a good substitute.

I also give every room a deep clean before advent starts, making the house ready.

(Then I put my bottle of Famous Grouse on the back shelf, because I give up my nightly treat for Advent).

We do this too!

My son for the last few years has been involved in the Wintershall plays. There's three a year, Nativity is this one, they also do the Passion in Trafalgar Square and the Life of Christ in the summer.

I look after the children, and it's a really lovely way to get ready for Christmas, even if it does thoroughly disrupt any weekends for Christmas shopping from November onwards.
If you're close enough to Guildford I'd thoroughly recommend it, but do dress up warm!

But what is particularly lovely for me, is my son is older teen, doesn't go to church, would tell you that he's not interested. But he has been reading the Bible he was given by the Wintershall family last summer, and is really thinking deeply. about it.

@MargaretThursday I’ll be praying for your son, that God would speak clearly to him and that his eyes and heart would be opened

Thank you. It's just lovely. We talk about all sorts of Christian issues on the journey, and he thinks really deeply. I'd love him to do an Alpha course where he could ask difficult debating questions.

The reading the Bible is definitely going in.
He came down the other day: (he for some reason calls us Mother and Father when he's being formal - no idea where that's come from!)
"Father. It says in the Bible, Fathers do not frustrate your children. And I am frustrated."
The parent control had kicked him out of the internet. 😂

Ha! 😂😂😂 My teen DC have taken to calling me mother too - who knows why! Their friends call me ‘mummy Jane’ (not my real name) but my own DC go with ‘mother’ 🤷🏼‍♀️

Would he consider reading a book? The God Story (Alain Emerson & Adam Cox) is a recent book which tells the whole over-arching story of scripture and ties it all together. It’s an easy read and might help to make the Bible make sense.

He's much more into watching than reading. I have to let him do it though, as anything parents suggest are propaganda and not to be trusted (even if he agrees with us 🤣). Tbf this is true of everything (especially anything to do with revision) not just Christianity.

As someone who has done an alpha course, I wouldn't recommend it. It's very basic and I'm sure that he already knows who Jesus is.

I think he'd enjoy it if it gave the opportunity to ask questions and debate, so it would depend on who was there and running it.

He's very like my dad who was converted by a couple of Christians at uni. My dad can debate anything, and never gives up. If he's winning too easily, he'll swap sides. When he met these Christians he thought he'd have great fun destroying their faith by his well reasoned arguments and logic.
After a few months he had to admit these two very quiet shy people were beating him in a debate which was unusual. They had an answer for everything, so he thought he better look into it.

For those interested, there is an article on Wintershall in this month's Country Living.

It's a lovely article with photos from last year.

My ds is very chuffed to find himself right in the middle of the shepherds, because he only played that part for one day when the normal person couldn't make it. We've spotted his back in a couple of the others, but as a Roman soldier, so no one would know except us (we know where he was standing).
He normally hates his photo being taken, so I rely on Wintershall to get me nice pictures of him. 😁

I remember feeling quite miffed as a child that my parents always emphasised the birth of Jesus over presents, tree, etc. But when I had my own children, it was important to me to give them a balance.

We have an Advent wreath and a Nativity set that are always set up on the first Sunday of Advent, and when the DCs were small they loved hearing the story of the first Christmas as their bedtime story. Yes, we also do the tree, and Santa still visits.

Going to Mass on Christmas Eve was very special when they were old enough to join the children's choir or do altar serving. We still go to that Mass en famille when they come home for the holiday.