My Christmas Tradition: Reading the Christmas Story

This is the first in a series of posts about Christmas traditions.This is one tradition that my family has started.

My husband and I, for the most part, are the only Christians in our family. We are trying to be salt and light to our families, especially around Christmas. It is important to us that our children understand that the reason for Christmas is Christ’s birth and not Santa Claus coming to our house.

On our third Christmas together as a family I decided that I wanted a very real way to express the reason for Christmas.

I actually got the idea for how to bring Christ into our Christmas from a powerful Christmas celebration put together by the church we were attending at the time. During this celebration, the entire Christmas story was read from the Bible as the orchestra played and the choir sang Christmas songs. There were even dancers behind a screen using creative movement to express the meaning. After seeing that, I decided that we were going to read the Christmas story in its entirety from the Bible. Unfortunately, I cannot provide the same kind of presentation that our church had, but at least my family can marvel at Christ’s birth every year.

I used Bible Gateway to locate all of the Scriptures. Then I printed them out and made booklets for each person in the family. I also added a nativity scene on the front cover. We took turns reading a few verses at a time. It was the first time my extended family had heard the real Christmas story. They always felt like they knew it, but after reading the actual story from the Bible, they realized that they were missing pieces. I felt like it was a huge success!

This will be the fourth Christmas that we read the whole story together. As the children get older, I hope that they grow to love hearing this story and anticipate it every year.

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