Everyone at our house is excited about Christmas coming!  One of the things the kids enjoy most are the traditions we have created over the years.  Some of the traditions have been intentional, and some have just happened by being requested each year, but they all lend to the excitement and joy of the season, which is our purpose in them, to rejoice in the celebration of God sending His Son to earth to die for us, so we can have salvation.

Years ago I read Noel Piper’s book Treasuring God In Our Traditions.   In the book she explains the why of traditions, pointing out that Moses, in Exodus 12:26-27, sets an example for us of the importance of celebrating traditions in order to teach our children what God has done for us.  Noel says, “We and our children need this yearly repetition to impress us with the weight of what God has done.”  In addition to giving reasons why we should have traditions, Noel shares some great ideas for creating those traditions.  It is a short, easy read, and well worth your time.

I thought I would share some of our traditions we do during the Christmas season as well as new things we are trying this year.

TRADITIONS

Making Christmas cookies – we have searched high and low for a good sugar cookie recipe and this is our favorite

Shepherd’s Bags – an idea we got from Noel’s book which is a free pdf download, or you can purchase the actual book at Amazon.

Word Puzzles – every year our kids like to see how many words they can make out of the word Christmas and other holiday words.  Jammerill at Free Homeschool Deals has a free downloadable Christmas spelling activity that uses this same idea.

NEW THINGS:

Salt Dough Ornaments – the kids and I are planning on making salt dough ornaments, but I saw this fun idea on Kids Activities Blog for a salt dough bracelet, which I think we will have to try soon too.

Advent Devotional –  Jim is leading us through John Pipers new Advent devotional, The Dawning of Indestructible Joy, in our times of family worship this Christmas season.  A FREE .pdf version of the devotional is available at Desiring God, they also have a link there to purchase a copy of the book, if you would desire.

Crayon Ornaments – this year we made the ornaments pictured at the beginning of this post.  It was a lot of fun to do and they look beautiful on our Christmas tree.  You can find the instructions to make them at Meet The Dubiens.

What are some of your Christmas traditions?  We would love to hear about them in the comment section.