Christmas Spirit

Our Sunday School lesson yesterday was basically remembering the true meaning of Christmas. (I have a seventeen month old little crazy and so I wasn't there the whole time.) There was a list on the board:

Gifts
Food
Family
Friends
Decorations
Christ

Then there were columns that said:

Most Excited

Most Important

We were to number them in order in both columns. Mine of course were not in the same order, as I'm sure some of yours aren't. We then discussed why that is. During this discussion is when I left to do my job being the "Hall Monitor", but before I left some people mentioned things like: the stores have Christmas up at Halloween and is too commercialized, we are suppose to be politically correct and therefore, Christ is taken out of Christmas, we love the food and the parties, etc...
I didn't think much about it until later that night when I realized that as a parent I have been the biggest reason why it isn't more about Christ in our home. I have tried to let the girls know the reason that we celebrate Christmas, this morning when I said Christmas is Jesus birthday Jo Jo just laughed at me and told me that it wasn't. And when I tried to tell them that we should give Jesus a gift (of being nice) she almost started crying and told me that she didn't want to give him her presents. I obviously am not doing a very good job! :)
Now the reason that it is my fault of why Christmas isn't more Christ centered is because, I have been the one telling the girls to be nice or Santa isn't coming and that if they aren't nice they will get their presents taken away. Now I'm pretty sure that most parents have threatened their kids with this at one time or another and I don't know about them, but it doesn't really work. Kids will do whatever they want, whether Santa "sees" or not.
Since I've come to this conclusion, I've decided to act differently. Instead of saying that Santa isn't going to bring their presents I tell the girls that Jesus wouldn't want us hurting each other and he really wants us to be nice, to give, and to be happy. There will be no more talk about Santa not coming if they aren't good. It needs to be more about Christ and being friendly, kind, gracious, and giving.
One other thing that I've started and I hope will be a good tradition to help the crazies is that I only buy them three presents. (Of course they will get their stocking and Santa gift, but from Dan and I there will only be three gifts.) The meaning behind the three gifts is that Jesus got three gifts when he was born and so to help us try to remember him more that is what we get. I also hope that it will teach them not to be greedy children and know that it isn't just about them.

Sorry if this is all jumbled, but I needed to write down how I was feeling. Since I have started this blog, it has become my journal and I haven't been as good writing about my feelings. I think that I do well in preserving the things that happen on a daily basis with the crazies, but I need to do better at writing my feelings and thoughts down.

I hope that you all have a Merry Christmas and try to keep Christ in your homes!