Christmas Eve Tradition For Children From Our House To Yours
On Christmas Eve many families spend time together in church singing Christmas carols, reading the Christmas Story through scripture, lighting candles, or doing something meaningful to them with family and friends. I would love nothing more than to get to spend Christmas Eve peacefully in a church singing and reaffirming my beliefs for the reason for the season, but... not gonna happen anytime soon!
Two Christmas's ago, we all loaded up and headed to church for the Christmas Eve service. I had these wonderful preconceived visions in my head of us all singing, lighting the candles and listening to the Christmas story together - right! That's not quite how it happened! My youngest fell off the pew, our candles ended up rolling down the aisles, no one sat still and not only could we not enjoy the service, I was pretty sure atleast the 5 rows around us couldn't either. After that fiasco, my mother-in-law decided she would have our own celebration at her house until the kids got older.
On Christmas Eve we go over to their house around 5:30 and
have dinner. After dinner we all gather in the living room and sing a selection of Christmas carols.
After we sing the Christmas carols, the kids all pile up on the couch in the living room and Linda (my mother-in-law) reads the Christmas story to all of them.
The next step in our "homemade" holiday service is to celebrate Jesus' birthday. We do this with the children by singing Happy Birthday to him and having a birthday cake. After we sing then they all get to blow out the candle together and go around and tell one thing this past year that they were thankful for.
To conclude our celebration they finally get to open their gifts from them and get their stockings. This tradition that she created has turned out to be as memorable and special to the adults as it has for the children. The next time you find yourself dragging a crying child out of church, remember Christmas Eve can be just as special and meaningful no matter where you choose to celebrate.
Happy Holidays from our house to yours,
Kendall
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