7 Ways for Families to Keep Christ At the Center of Christmas in 2020.

Christmas time is a great time of the year to make Christ Connections at home.

1. Advent Wreaths – We have an Advent wreath that sits on our dining table each Christmas.  Over the years, our family has enjoyed lighting the candles each Sunday of the Advent season.  Advent wreaths can be purchased at a Christian bookstore or you can click the link to see instructions from the Focus on the Family website on How to make an advent wreath.

2. Advent Devotions – There are many resources available for families to use for Advent devotions during this special time of the year.  You can download some for free or purchase one at the Christian bookstore.  Over the years, our family has used a variety of resources.  One of my favorite ones is Jeff and Abbey Land’s book, The Way to the Manger.

3. Focus on the Family has Free downloadable Advent Calendars.  Another option is that during the Advent season, many churches produce a set of Advent Family Devotional readings.  We have several of these that we have collected over the years.

4. Share the love of Christ by giving to others this Christmas.  Click on the link to see ideas and printables for acts of kindness from Courtney Defoe’s Light em up project.

5. Pray for others – Designate a special night or take a brief time each night during December to pray for those who have lost a family member in the last year.  Another idea is to pray for families as you receive their Christmas cards and letters.

6. Read the Christmas story from a family Bible.  Take time during the season to sit down together as a family and read the Christmas story from Luke 2.  If you have a special family Bible, you might want to use it.  (One year in our family, as we got ready to read the Christmas story, my son volunteered to read it using a Bible app on his new iPad.  My husband preferred to read it from his grandmother’s Bible.  So . . . we read part of the Christmas story from the iPad and part from Grandmother’s Bible.)

7.  Attend a Christmas Eve service together as a family.

These are just a few ideas to make Christ Connections at home in the midst of a busy season.  I’d love to hear what you do.