Growing up, I will never forget some of our family’s Christmas traditions. Every year we would do certain things the same as the year before that. For instance without fail I would get in trouble every christmas eve day. I would be so wired up and ready for the big day that I would do something stupid and find myself causing stress in someone else’s life. That was one of the unspoken Christmas traditions. There were tons of other ones which we practiced every year faithfully. One of them was setting up our families manger scene. This is something that has become close to my heart. I look back on those times with great memories. As a family we would “open” up the manger scene and set each piece in it’s place. I say open it up because each piece was carefully wrapped in tissue paper. It was a grab bag of sorts. You never knew which piece you were going to get. However secretly inside, I always wanted to be the guy who unraveled the tissue and found a sweet little baby Jesus. Anyway, once you unraveled your piece we would describe what part in the story the piece played. This whole process got more and more theological as three of the four siblings went off to Bible College. While I was in high school I can remembering coming up with different analogies and stories describing why the “ten thousand lambs” (It seemed like there were that many anyhow…) were at the manger scene, “The Lion and the Lamb”, “The sacrificial Lamb”, “Jesus was the good shepherd”, “All we like sheep have gone astray”, as I write this now, I am chuckling thinking about my sister Heather coming up with new and Biblical explanations of those little lambs. Good times… After the manger was all set up, my dad would open up his Bible, and the little ribbon would lay neatly open to Luke, and we would reread the gospel story once again. What a genius’ my mom and dad were… What a tradition.
The other day I realized that without even thinking we began doing something very similar with our kids. The manger scene is quite different, and the way it was done was also different, but the idea remains the same. I suppose you can say that the tradition will be carried on in my house. Here are some pictures of the “Opening of the manger scene” 2008.
Here we are with my kids being 3 and almost 2 and I’m so excited to see what explanations they come up with when the donkey pops up, what do they do with that donkey. I can’t wait to see where they theologically place the wisemen, or magi… or hmm… what were they? I am looking forward to hearing if the angels sang or said, “Glory to God in the Highest”… AH! It’s going to be great… Did the magi/kings ride camels or horses… (Thank you hallmark for all of your inaccurate images… but that’s another post…) We had a great time explaining the story of God, Jesus, coming to earth.
What traditions do you have?
Merry Christmas!!!
~Peter
6 Comments
Oh Christmas Eve…and now I “get it”!! Yes, I do think that I was the one that started becoming a bit more creative with the sheep. The kids did it this year & Lady apparently got one of the sheep at sheep at some point. I told her that there were plenty, that one could be thrown out.
guess I should’ve proofed that before I posted it
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One tradition I recall foundley was on Christmas Eve we could open one gift, if we were well behaved. I am not sure what you had to do to not get to open one, becuase we always were able to. I remember on two different occastions asking for a new Bible for Christmas, and twice that was the gift I opened on Christmas Eve. Another tradition besides my family actually getting a long for at least one day of the year was the story of Hug’s and Kisses. One year when I was young, I couldnt think of anything I wanted. This is not surprising considering I am still like this, but I wrote on my list Hug’s and Kisses. My mom being the creative one of the two parents, found those “Little Hug” -juice barrels with the tinfoil on top and Hershey’s kisses. She loved my face when I looked at it and was like what is this… Still to this day, mom loves to do the tradition. We also do a huge grab bag every year. In all seriousness I loved Christmas, wish that we as a family could have stayed together, but I am still glad to see all of them and am looking forward to it. Thanks for the post
not only did lady get one but i have one hidden in a drawer in my desk! we’re short by two… somehow i don’t think anyone missed it.
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