By, Nicole M.
Simple—yet significant—ways to add joy to the Christmas Season
Pause to play together at home
After supper we built a blanket fort in the living room and strung Christmas lights in it. We had a lot of fun and made a spontaneous family memory together!
Give an unexpected gift at church
I am in charge of the nursery and in my annual report I encouraged our church family to “thank a nursery worker when you see one.” To make my appreciation for each of them known I spent an evening writing short thank you notes and attaching them to chocolates. The next day I placed the little treats in the workers church mailboxes. It was a joyous activity (while I watched a movie!) and I hope the little surprises encouraged them in their service.
Bring others along to spend time with someone in the community
It has been a tradition with our youth group to spend a night making cookies together. Lots of laughs are shared. A few weeks later we will walk to the seniors’ complex to sing songs and enjoy the cookies with those who come to the common room. It’s a highlight of the year for everyone!
Advent Idea: Check Your Attitude and Remember the Joy of the Gospel.
By, Sarah C.
Advent is a beautiful season filled with traditions, remembrances, and the turning of our hearts toward Christ. Yet, through the blizzard of program-directing, gift-buying, daily family reading, card-sending, church-decorating, and the general calendar-filling of Advent and Christmas activities, our joy in this season can be quickly sidelined. Joy becomes a nice little fill-in to all the hustle if it happens along our path every so often. We drive fiercely for the best program ever, the personally chosen gifts, the most beautiful Christmas card, or the advent readings done on time. By the end of it all, we are driven to exhaustion and we gain an attitude of despair. But why? Every action has a motive. What motivates our over-the-top Advent season actions? Is it about how we feel when we create a moment? Does it come from a desire for happiness? Maybe there is a hint of pride, wanting to look and be a certain way.
But the truth is that the celebration of Advent isn’t about how we feel or what makes us happy. The Advent season is about Christ and Christ is about joy. It is a pure, beautiful, satisfying joy that reaches through and delights our souls in a way nothing else can. For this joy comes from the truth of the gospel of Christ lighting our lives with hope. It is this life-altering, sin-forgiving, unbelievable joy that leads us to salvation. And it is this, the gift of salvation, that is the whole point. He came, He gave, He saved.
To truly understand and experience the Advent season for what it is, we must recognize that it is about the truth of the gospel come to man through the birth of a baby. Only then will we be able to change our attitudes of weariness to a joyful understanding that the joy of the season lies not in the feelings we labor to create but from the love of a gracious Father sending us the precious gift of grace.
Meditate: “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am foremost . . . To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.” (1 Tim. 1:16a, 17)
