Get Into the Christmas Spirit

Everywhere you look during Christmas, people are celebrating. It's easy to get caught up in all the excitement. But celebrating just for celebration's sake isn't meaningful or fulfilling. It's only when you focus your celebration on Christ - the reason for the season - that you discover the true Christmas spirit.

Here are some ways you can celebrate Christmas in meaningful ways:

• Hang a stocking for Christ alongside stockings for your family. Have each household member place a signed and dated note to Christ inside His stocking, mentioning ways in which he or she is thankful, prayer requests, etc. Leave the notes inside for a year, then pull them out during the next Christmas, read them aloud, and discuss how Christ has worked in your lives in the past year. Then place new notes inside.

• Each day throughout December and January, choose one Christmas card you've recently received and pray for the people who sent it. Then send them a postcard letting them know you prayed for them.

• Place a box in a central point in your house and encourage family members to put a small cash offering to charity inside whenever they pass by the box. Then donate the box's contents to a charity at Christmas, or to your church during your Christmas Eve worship service.

• Write down some questions for God, then pray about each of them and listen for His Spirit's voice in reply.

• Try to relax. Let go of unrealistic expectations such as all family members getting along perfectly or every person to whom you give a gift being thrilled with it. Ask God for grace each day and for help to truly love others through His power.

• Look beyond your individual family to the larger family of God. Celebrate with friends who are your brothers and sisters in Christ, and reach out to people who don't yet know Christ to share His love with them.

• Tell the Christmas story through visual aids by wrapping a box in Christmas paper and filling it with objects that will help you illustrate the story. For example, a photo of your child when he or she was a baby can help you discuss how Jesus started as a baby and grew up to save the world. Ask your child what he or she wants to do as an adult and how Jesus can help him or her.

Adapted from God's Vitamin "C" for the Christmas Spirit, copyright 1996 by Starburst, Inc. Compiled by Kathy Collard Miller and D. Larry Miller. Published by Starburst Publishers, www.starburstpublishers.com, 1-800-441-1456.

Kathy Collard Miller has authored 16 books and regularly contributes articles to national magazines. D. Larry Miller has co-authored several books with Kathy and serves as a police sergeant with the Huntington Beach Police Department in California.

What are some ways you celebrate Christmas that have special meaning for you, and why? How has God used your Christmas celebrations to draw you closer to Him? Visit Live It's forum to respond, or read what others have to say. Just click on the link below.