Christmas Traditions
Make your Christmas holiday season different this year. Slow down and take time to be thoughtful in your giving and receiving.
We’d love to hear some of your favorite traditions that bring peace and simplify the Christmas holiday season in your life. Email us your ideas and we’ll post them under the appropriate category. Visit these now for more ways to simplify your Christmas.
- Advent Calendars
- Christmas Books & Stories
- Christmas Poems
- Christmas Thoughts
- Christmas Movies
- Christmas Activities
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Advent Calendars
Using a Christmas Advent calendar each year is a simple family tradition that will be remembered for generations. The tradition finds its origins in the 19th century in Germany. In the German tradition, 'Advent' refers to the 24 days preceding Christmas Day, from December 1-24. On the Advent Calendar, you open one window each day to reveal a picture and/or scripture verses.
The tradition of Advent Calendars is enchanting to children and adults. For adults it can “win us back to the delusions of our childhood days” and re-kindle our child-like faith. For children, Advent Calendars can remind them of the real meaning of Christmas, and allows them to participate in the patient countdown to Christmas. It is a thoughtful yet exciting tradition.
Advent calendars help us slow down during this hectic season to remember, even if just for a moment each day, why we’re celebrating Christmas. Helen Steiner Rice said,” Peace on earth will come to stay, when we live Christmas every day."
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Christmas Books/Stories
Luke, Chapter 2
A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens
The Polar Express
Little Women
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Christmas Poetry
This Year Will Be Different
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Christmas Thoughts
Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer,
but always it will be a day of remembrance,
a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved.
-- Augusta E. Rundel
1. Happy, Happy Christmas, that can win us back to
the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the
old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport
the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!
-- Charles Dickens
I have always thought of Christmas time as a good time;
a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time;
the only time I know of in the long calendar of the year,
when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely.
-- Charles Dickens
Whatever else be lost among the years,
Let us keep Christmas still a shining thing:
Whatever doubts assail us, or what fears,
Let us hold close one day, remembering
Its poignant meaning for the hearts of men.
Let us get back our childlike faith again.
-- Grace Noll Crowell
Helen Lowrie Marshall
The merry family gatherings –
The old, the very young;
The strangely lovely way they
Harmonize in carols sung.
For Christmas is tradition time
Traditions that recall
The precious memories down the years,
The sameness of them all.
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Christmas Movies
A Muppet's Christmas Carol
White Christmas
Elf
Miracle on 34th St.
It's a Wonderful Life
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Christmas Activities
Singing Christmas Carols
Enjoying a Festive Dessert
Going Sledding/Tubing
Christmas Morning
Service Projects
