Kids and Christmas

Christmas with kids can be an interesting struggle. As Christians, we want the focus to be on the birth of our Savior Jesus. Of worshipping His glory and His majesty and the wonder of it all. But then there's also all of our cultural celebrations of Christmas--Santa, gifts, cookies, family traditions, travel, etc. Trying to do it all is enough to make anyone (or at least me) exhausted by Christmas morning. How do I balance this? How do I teach my children to keep their eyes on Jesus while also going to ChickfilA to see Santa?

A few articles I read this year suggested getting rid of anything Christmas that does not specifically point to Christ--no Santa, perhaps not even a Christmas tree. Or if you do a Christmas tree, it should only have the Jesse ornaments on it. While I actually understand all of their arguments and it sounds fine, something in it seems lacking to me to completely bypass the cultural celebrations too.

Today I read this article: "Of Kids and Christmas"

http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/of-kids-and-christmas

I highly recommend reading it. It is one of the best perspectives on engaging Christmas with all its hustle, bustle, materialism, and chaos while still keeping Christ the focus. And it's written by a mom with 5 small children. I figure she can relate. So I thought I'd share. Merry Christmas!