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    Reclaiming Christmas: How to Creatively Celebrate the Season That Has Become Excessmas
    Reclaiming Christmas: How to Creatively Celebrate the Season That Has Become Excessmas
    Reclaiming Christmas: How to Creatively Celebrate the Season That Has Become Excessmas
    Ebook161 pages1 hour

    Reclaiming Christmas: How to Creatively Celebrate the Season That Has Become Excessmas

    By Ginger Jurries

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    About this ebook

    Are you tired of the materialistic craziness of Christmas celebrations? Instead of relishing the wonder and joy of the holy holiday, we stumble through in a commercial haze, feeling exhausted and ready for it all to be mercifully finished.

    Is there an alternative to this commercial dilemma? Happily there is! What we need is not only permission to reclaim our sacred season, but also creative ideas for peace-filled, stress-free, and meaningful celebrations.

    A plethora of delightful and diverse ideas can help your family not only to anticipate the season but also to grow closer through Advent and enjoy the holy season in a more meaningful, other-centered way.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWestBow Press
    Release dateDec 5, 2013
    ISBN9781490814421
    Reclaiming Christmas: How to Creatively Celebrate the Season That Has Become Excessmas
    Author

    Ginger Jurries

    Ginger Jurries graduated from Hope College in Holland, Michigan, with a major in English. She attended Western Theological Seminary and spent sixteen days of intensive study in Israel with Ray VanderLaan. She has passionately researched alternative Christmas celebrations for many years. Ginger has coauthored two books with Karen Mulder—Fun Ideas for Family Devotions and bestseller The Compassionate Congregation: A Handbook for People who Care. The author resides in Holland, Michigan, but escapes to the warmth of Naples, Florida, for the winter months. Her interests include spending time with her husband of forty-nine years, Jim; her grown children, Kristin and Steve; and dear friends, as well as reading and Bible study.

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      Book preview

      Reclaiming Christmas - Ginger Jurries

      Contents

      Introduction

      Chapter 1  A Look over Our Collective Shoulders

      Chapter 2  Quitting Cold (or Warm) Turkey

      Chapter 3  Traditions to Treasure

      Chapter 4  Christ-Centered Activities

      Chapter 5  The Stress Mess…Cleaning it up

      Chapter 6  A Guide to Managing Holiday Grief

      Chapter 7  What to say? What to do?

      Chapter 8  Gift Giving Revisited

      Chapter 9  Christmas Trivia

      Chapter 10  Celebrate Epiphany

      Chapter 11  Holiday Events Diary

      Chapter 12  Resources that Make Memories

      Notes

      Dedication

      I dedicate this book to all who desire a

      more Christ-centered Christmas season and

      to all those wise men and women who still seek Him.

      Acknowledgements

      I am deeply grateful to my friends who have contributed to the success of this book with their editorial expertise: Kristin Allen, Jim Jurries, Karen Mulder, Helen Komejan, Lisa Marie Eisenhower, Cynthia Heald and Gregg Nieusma.

      INTRODUCTION

      How to Use this book

      The book you are holding is a handbook for enhancing your family activities during the season of Advent. It is appropriate for a large age span and as such you might want to peruse the contents in order to determine which activities are appropriate for your children or grandchildren.

      The section, A Guide to Handling Holiday Grief, Chapter 6, or The Jewish-Christian Marriage Dilemma in Chapter 7, What to say/What to Do, might not pertain to you so you could skip either chapter. On the other hand, the story about Hanukkah in the same chapter is quite fascinating and appropriate for anyone interested in the history of Christianity.

      Memories of repeatable events and acts of kindness can be recorded in the Remembering Advent – A Holiday Events Diary, Chapter 10. Reviewing them encourages everyone to be more thoughtful throughout the year. Reminiscences about where and how the day was spent might also be recorded in this section. Activities that were a big success as well as those too difficult or inappropriate for the children could be noted.

      Resources That Make Memories, Chapter 11, contains a rich resource for treasured family reading. Although the list of Christmas books is inexhaustible, those listed are some of my favorites. You might begin a tradition of buying a book for the entire family (or for yourself) at the beginning of each Advent season. My daughter, Kristin, and I still chuckle about the Christmas that we gave each other the same book, Where Angels Walk, by Joan Wester Anderson!

      Hopefully, the ideas in this book will guide you to design your holiday activities rather than simply allowing the commercialism of the season to mold you into its pattern of activities.

      Why Change Our Celebrations?

      We’ve always done it that way, is a familiar saying that has been used over the centuries as an excuse to remain steadfast in our habits and traditions. There are some things that should remain as entrenched as a mole in his tunnel but other traditions, from time to time, cry for reexamination.

      Perhaps you have, since you were young, followed certain Christmas traditions because you were raised to religiously carry them out year after year. You’ve never considered not doing them. They may or may not enhance your family’s enjoyment of the season, your ability to get the most satisfaction from the holy season with a minimum of stress and hassle.

      I believe that most families of faith have real concerns about the commercialism that has come to dominate the Christmas season. We have been blindly wooed by the glitter and gift-giving demands that have become woven tightly into our festivities. We feel compelled to keep pace with these customs because it is expected of us. By whom, I wonder? What would happen if we reassessed our Christmas celebrations and put down our collective feet, refusing to ride the tidal wave of materialistic surfing? Would we be accused of being the Grinch who stole Christmas? I think not!

      I invite you to take a hard look at the season we call holy and do an honest appraisal of your personal and family traditions. You just might find some ways to make changes in the way you invest your talents, your time and your money during the Christmas season. Perhaps you will find some good reasons to make some significant changes, ones that will be more satisfying, memorable, family centered and most importantly, more honoring to the Savior whose birth we commemorate.

      Chapter 1

      A Look over Our Collective Shoulders

      Has your Ho! Ho! Ho! turned to Oh! Oh! Oh!? Christmas is supposed to be a delightful time of warm family gatherings and delightful memory-making activities. If, however, you’re like most of the world’s population, you feel like a freight train is barreling down on you when the calendar turns to December. With too much to do on top of the normal activities, the wants outweigh the bank account, and the parties and shopping tax the stamina of even the young and dauntless. The stress has made the holiday more of a month-long headache than a joyous event.

      Strange Way to Celebrate

      Ken Potts, writer for the Detroit Daily Herald, has this to say about the most stressful season: If we are readying ourselves for a celebration of the birth of a man of peace – a person to whom many of us turn to for purpose, meaning, and the faith which is at the center of our lives; if we see this as a time to reaffirm and strengthen our ties and commitments to friends and family, it looks to me like we are going about this in a rather strange way.¹

      Will the Reason-for-the-Season Please Step forward?

      Where is the Child?

      I once read a story about a wealthy family who decided to have a party to celebrate their child’s baptism. The guests arrived and the maid deposited the elegant wraps on the bed in the master bedroom. As the party progressed, one guest inquired as to the whereabouts of the baby. A frantic search ensued. No one could locate the child until someone remarked that she had seen him earlier on the bed in the master bedroom. And sure enough, there under a pile of coats and jackets was the baby, nearly smothered. The object of the party’s celebration had been neglected and forgotten.

      As I see shoppers bustling through crowded malls and hear complaints about how stressed my friends are and how there is no time for devotions and meaningful activities in the face of the long to-do list, I am reminded of this story.

      The wise men came to Jerusalem with a singleness of purpose – to find the Christ child and worship Him. Likewise, it seems to me that our goal during the Christmas season needs to center on discovering anew the Christ in Christmas and in finding ways to duly honor and worship a Savior and King who is worthy of such honor.

      Perhaps the cover of this book could be your focal point during the Christmas season. Whenever your focus tends to drift from centering on the spiritual aspects of the Christmas Season, let the example of the single-purposed wise men be your guide and inspiration to concentrate on finding the Christ of Christmas and making that your aim. Let your heart and the ideas in this book lead you to Him.

      Christmas Quandary

      Christmas doesn’t have to be a countdown to exhaustion. Believe it or not, it could quite possibly be a peaceful season during which the family becomes more united and gains a new appreciation for the amazing significance of what, for Christians, should be one of the most holy (not crazy) and delightful seasons of the year. Sound impossible? Read on.

      I suspect that most families with a sincere faith have longed not only to unplug the Christmas machine but also to establish family traditions and infuse more meaningful activities into the holidays. We, however, not only lack the direction we need but a voice that acknowledges that it’s ok to change certain activities and replace them with those that enhance our worship of the Christ. In an age of materialism we have been sucked into the big commercial vacuum labeled EXCESSMAS. We have hardly noticed that we have abandoned our more spiritually rich customs and adopted worldly, materialistic ones. Alas, what a quandary.

      When God became a Man

      Christmas has become an event that is not only overly stressful and commercial but also that is almost too huge to define. For those of us who know the Christ, it is about remembering the time when God, through Christ, made Himself known to us by becoming a mere mortal. As Christians, we refer to this event as the incarnation, or emptying. It refers to someone who is brought low voluntarily, laying aside his high rank and becoming as nothing in comparison with his prior dignity. Coming to earth as the King of the Universe was an incredibly humiliating and degrading experience for Jesus. He was willing to endure not only it, but also the indignity of the cross, for our sakes. It seems appropriate to say that Christmas was when God become a man. Perhaps

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