Christ-Centered Christmas Traditions: Keep Christ the Focus of Christmas
This Christmas family tradition will help you focus on Jesus Christ all throughout the Christmas season. Keep your Christmas focusesd on the Savior all throughout December with this Christ-centered Christmas family tradition.
Hey y’all, Tiffany here, and I’ve got a fantastic idea on how you can keep Christ as the center of your Christmas through the entire month of December with a special family Christmas tradition.
What’s your favorite Christmas tradition? Something that you or your family does every year that just embodies the spirit of Christmas? Do you keep Christ in your Christmas?
Christmas Traditions
In my family growing up, we would would go out to dinner at a new restaurant as a family on Christmas Eve. I’m the oldest of 10 kids, so going out to eat was a rare treat for us!
After being at the restaurant, we would drive around and look at Christmas lights while singing Christmas carols.
There was one house in Denver that we stopped at every year. The home owners had turned their entire backyard into a Santa’s workshop, full of trains and lights, and even a sleigh. They also passed out free hot chocolate to anyone brave enough to get out of their snug warm cars into the frigid air.
This is something that I continue to do with our family, although we usually eat out on December 23rd – we call it Christmas Adam dinner. (Get it? Because Adam comes before Eve?)

Another Christmas memory I have is of my father’s wooden Nativity set being brought carefully out of storage. It was hand carved in Ecuador, and my father purchased it when he was a missionary there for two year at age 19.
I purchased a similar set on my mission in Puerto Rico about 10 years ago. We actually leave it up all year round, to try to remember that Christ’s birth should be celebrated all year.
Since we don’t really do Santa in our home, we try to make Christ be the focus of our December and keep Him in our Christmas.
One tradition we do each December is something I also gained on my mission, and it has made all the difference for me.
Keep Christ in Christmas
This one simple Christmas tradition will completely change how you and your family view the Christmas season.
It’s the simplest tradition, really. And I got it from one of my companions in the Missionary Training Center in the Domincan Republic. It’s something she and her family did each year:
Read the book of Luke all throughout the month of December.
You see, most people read Luke 2 on Christmas Eve – many families with young children even act out the Nativity.
However, Christ is so much more than His birth! We need to keep Christ in Christmas….
Because He lived a perfect life, in order to show us how we should live.
Because He suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane, and He died on the cross.
And because He was resurrected and came forth from the tomb.

As we celebrate His birth, we also should remember the reason why it’s such a big deal! And we should teach our children that as well. Christmas is so much more than just a birthday party of a great man.
The book of Luke has 24 chapters in it – isn’t that perfect? You can read a chapter each day from December 1st, ending on Christmas Eve! This way you keep Christ in Christmas each day leading up to the holiday.
No matter where we are in our family scripture study, we pause it when we hit December 1st, and we resume it again on December 25th.
We also like decorating for Christmas with these “keep Christ in Christmas” reminders.
I can’t tell you what a tremendous blessing it has been in our family to have this Christmas tradition. Being able to discuss the life of Christ throughout the month of His birth with our children brings a reverence and awe that is sorely lacking during this commercial-centered time of year.
What are some of your favorite ways to make sure you keep Christ in Christmas and focused on our Savior?
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The “simple” traditions are always my favorite. Oldest of 10 — wow! That is quite an experience all in itself! I love the idea of reading a chapter of Luke every night from December 1st through the 25th. Growing up, my holidays were primarily chaotic, to say the least. My mom tried to raise my brother and I under a Christian roof; but my biological father had opposite plans. He was often missing or late for holidays and we lived our lives on his mother’s terms. Since having my own family, I have been determined to break that viscous cycle. My husband is an amazing man who was raised in a full-Christian home and regularly went to church. We have what I consider “basic” traditions but I would love to instill some deeper traditions that are rooted in Christ to pass on to my boys. Wonderful post!