Christmas Traditions

Earlier this month, Cavett's teacher sent home a blank sheet asking about traditions in our family during the month and then we were to make a "snow globe" of how we celebrate. I didn't shy away from telling it exactly how it is at our house. Ok, maybe I left out the part about telling our kids that Santa was a real person, but that he doesn't still travel around the world and pop up and down chimneys and that instead everything we have and get comes from our Lord.  And Jesus' name will be found on some of the tags underneath the tree.  We have surely been blessed! 

Since he would be learning all about Kwanzaa and Hanukkah and we can send anything to public school, I did. What follows are our Christmas Eve and Day traditions that we will be doing tonight and tomorrow morning.

Merry Texas Christmas, You All!

The Hill family celebrates Christmas and focuses on Jesus' birth. During Advent which begins four Sundays before Christmas Day, we light an Advent wreath while we have dinner. The wreath has 3 purple candles and one pink candle. Each Sunday we light an additional candle until Christmas Eve when we light the white candle in the middle--the Christ candle. Every night we read a passage from the Bible and discuss it or have an activity that illustrates the passage.

On Christmas Eve we have Gumbo for dinner--a dish from Louisiana that is like a soup with sausage and shrimp over rice. Afterwards, we attend our church service where we light candles and sing "Silent Night." Our bedtime story that evening comes from the Bible telling about the birth of Jesus Christ from Luke 2.

The first thing we do on Christmas morning is a dance. We turn the stereo up really loud and dance to "Merry Texas Christmas, You All." It was my Dadoo's favorite Christmas song. Next we open our advent calendar to find the clue for our scavenger hunt to find Baby Jesus. He has been hidden all of Advent. After we find him, he is returned to the Nativity Scene and we sing "Happy Birthday to Jesus." Breakfast then follows. It is a Christmas Bread with origins dating back from the late 18th century in the Scandinavian countries. It is based on the legend of St. Lucia and typically celebrated on December 13th which used to be the winter solstice on the Julian calendar. It is a celebration of light--of which Jesus is the light of the world.

After opening presents and hoarding our wrapping paper, we then have a gigantic "snowball fight."