Practical Ways To Focus on Christ at Christmas

Hi friends,

Financial analysts expect Americans to spend about a trillion dollars as they shop for Christmas this year.

One hundred fifteen million Americans will travel more than 50 miles to see family and friends.

Add in holiday parties, decorating our homes, and the expectations of having a ‘perfect Christmas’… this could be an incredibly stressful season.

So let’s discuss… how we can reclaim Christmas for Christ.

To get us started, here are some suggestions for how we can deepen our connection to Jesus this Christmas:

  • Acts of secret service. Christmas is often about ostentatious gift-giving. Reverse the trend by finding ways to serve people anonymously.

  • Participate in a service project. Christmas is often about getting what we want. Turn this on its head by volunteering at a food bank or other local cause.

  • Sing hymns. One of the most spiritually rewarding activities for Christmas is to sing classic Christmas hymns - Joy to the World, O Come All Ye Faithful, and O Come, O Come Emmanuel are three of my favorites.

  • Go on a prayer walk. I love to walk around my neighborhood and enjoy the Christmas lights. Why not turn it into an opportunity to pray for your neighbors and build some friendships, too?

  • Set up a Nativity scene. Especially if you have younger kids, this is an opportunity to create a beautiful visual reminder of why we are celebrating Christmas.

  • Daily Advent Readings. Retailers want us to focus on Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and all the other secular shopping days. But as Christians, we can call this season by its proper name: Advent. By changing how we talk about the calendar, we change how we experience time. I’ve written The Gift of Advent to provide you with a daily devotional that will point you and your family to worship Jesus.

How do you and your family focus on Christ at Christmas?

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Hi @Carson, thanks for sharing these ideas! Have you noticed if any one in particular has made the biggest impact on your family or the community around you?

For my family growing up, we would follow an advent calendar and reading the Christmas story before opening presents, which was a beautiful way to reflect on the true gift of Christmas together.

It seems like we did that less and less as we grew up and moved out. With the difficulty of scheduling and getting everyone together it seems like we often skip straight to presents with maybe a short prayer beforehand.

One of my friends, who recently moved back to the US with his family after spending the last 20 or so years in Thailand, shared that they had often celebrated Christmas, not with presents, but with outreach events inviting the community in to eat together and to celebrate the coming of Christ with food and sharing the gospel.

Inviting others to join the celebration through sharing a meal and sharing about Christ seems like a really sweet and impactful way to keep the focus of Christmas on Jesus.

I’m excited to hear how others keep Jesus the center of their celebration!

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Hey @blake, that’s a good question! For me, a daily Advent devotional has been most important because it refocuses my heart daily to focus on Christ.

It can be hard to add additional activities to an already busy season. But experiencing each day in light of Christ helps me to engage in the holidays with a different attitude than I would otherwise have.

After that, I think the next most valuable practices for me have been to set up a Nativity scene and look for opportunities to be generous with others.

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Thanks for sharing, that’s helpful to know! It’s been quite a long time since my family did an advent calendar together. I looked at a few of the devotions in The Gift of Advent last year, but I’m thinking I might try to go through from the beginning this year and perhaps get a friend or two to go through it together!

Reading through the daily lectionary is also newer to me, not being from a liturgical background, but I’m guessing that would be focused toward advent readings in December as well?

If so, that could be a nice way of keeping the focus on Christ in the advent season alongside the devotions. Otherwise, I’ve been pairing my daily reading with what I’m studying lately to help keep my focus on growing in the Lord throughout the work that I do for school.

You also share a really good point here:

The devotion and Bible reading are nice because they’re just focusing something I’m doing already. While it may be harder for me to start something new by hosting others for a meal or reaching out to others to share the gospel as I had mentioned at first, especially since I’ll be traveling, I think I want to try and host one meal of celebration that I invite friends to – both Christian and non-Christian alike. One meal seems like it would be an attainable step towards refocusing how I think about and celebrate Christmas.

Since I also know I’ll be celebrating with family regardless, I’d like to work on paying closer attention to those conversations and being intentional with opportunities to have conversations about Christ.

Your response was a helpful reminder to be realistic about what I can do and thoughtful in my efforts to focus on Christ. I’m excited to see what this next advent season looks like!

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