How to Have a Christ-Centered Christmas

Instead of being Christ Centered, Christmas has become such a big production. All you have to do is look at Pinterest to find all the ideas for Christmas. While the decoration ideas, craft ideas, and gift ideas can be fun they can also be overwhelming.

Now don’t get me wrong I love all of the things that surround Christmas. I love making Christmas Cookies with my kids, doing crafts and all the Christmas things. But when you really think about it are those the things you remember?

When I think of Christmas time growing up the biggest things I remember are spending time together, giving service, making memories, Christmas music and remembering Christ.

Some years we made ornaments and cookies. Other years we spent days decorating the whole house. Growing up our traditions changed year to year but we always spent time together and we always gave service to others.

As much as I love Christmas we try to keep things simple at our house, I want to be able to enjoy the moment, not stress about what comes next.

We want Christmas to be fun but we want to remember the reason we celebrate Christmas and that is because of Christ.

So when planning our Christmas activities we try to make sure that (1) It brings us together as a family, (2) It’s something we actually want to do and (3) It brings us closer to Christ.

Now as much as I would like to say all of our activities are designed to be focused on Christ that’s not always the case. But for most activities, you don’t have to think too hard to find a way to connect it to Christ and his teachings.

Christ-Centered Christmas Ideas

Here are 25 Christ-Centered Christmas Ideas, that doesn’t mean you should do all of these or that we do all of these activities. They are ideas to help you find things activities your family will enjoy doing during the holidays.

Decorate with Nativities

Nativities are one of my favorite ways to decorate for Christmas. It’s easy to keep Christ the focus of Christmas when you have the nativity scenes surrounding you.

We like to have nativities that our kids can play with. It’s one of the things they look forward to about Christmas. Our favorite kid’s nativity is the Fisher-Price Little People Nativity.

Give 3 Gifts

Just like the 3 gifts Jesus received from the wise men, our kids each get 3 gifts from mom and dad. It’s a great way to keep to a budget and a reminder for why we give presents.

Limiting the gifts also makes us intentional in what gifts we give. Get details about the 3 Christmas gift challenge here.

Simplify Santa

Some families don’t do Santa at all and others do everything Santa. We fall somewhere in the middle. We like to make Santa fun, the kids even got to call him last year. But Santa only brings our stockings. He doesn’t bring any gifts.

I love the book I Believe in Santa that explains how Santa is a symbol of Christ. That’s one of the reasons we love incorporating Santa into our Christmas traditions.

BUT I think it’s important for kids to realize that gifts come from people and have them express gratitude. I feel like when Santa brings everything kids often expect things and aren’t as grateful for them.

It’s also hard when Santa brings everything and then kids get together with friends and because each families Christmas budget is different some may feel Santa doesn’t “love them as much”. Have parent’s give the gifts so kids don’t expect the world from Santa without any gratitude.

Read the Christmas Story

Don’t feel like you can only read the Christmas story once. Read it again and again. Repetition is a great way for kids and adults to remember and understand things.

There are many ways to read the Christmas Story and we like to change it up. We read it from the bible at least once and then we like to use advents, picture books and other things to keep the story fresh in our minds.

Here are some Awesome Christmas Story Resources:

12 Days of Christmas Nativity {Free Printable} – Julie at Happy Home Fairy shares this fun printable with a rhyme about the nativity broken into 12 days. Each day shares a different part of the nativity and scripture you can read.

Nativity Advent Coloring Page – Justine and Little Dove blog share an awesome free printable Nativity Advent coloring page. The coloring page is adorable and comes with a numbered sheet. So you color a specific person or item each day and read the scripture that goes with it.

Listen to Christmas Music

I’m one of those people that as soon as Halloween is over I turn on the Christmas music. I love the spirit that holiday music can bring into our home.

While I love listening to many of the popular Christmas songs, the Christmas music we play in our home has to be clean both in message and words and it has to bring a good feeling with it.

Music is powerful and I want the music we have in our home to bring a good spirit and feeling into our home. Mannheim Steamroller is one of my all-time favorites to listen to at Christmas.

Act out the Christmas Nativity

Get some costumes or make your own and act out the Nativity play. We keep the acting and script pretty simple at our house. But if you really want to get into it Anita at Live Like You Are Rich has a Nativity Play complete with scripts, songs, and a costume list.

Read Christmas Books Together

We love reading together so of course, we are going to read Christmas books together. Here are some of our favorite Christmas picture books. While not all of them are specifically about Christ they all share a message or lesson that can help us draw closer to the savior.

Make Christmas Crafts Together

While crafting to some people is overwhelming it’s something I really enjoy. So it’s something we as a family include in our Christmas activities.

Bake Together

Spending time baking together is one of my favorite things to do all year round. It’s such a great time to talk, laugh and make memories. For Christmas make some extra special Christmas cookies using Nativity Cookie Cutters.

Attend a Christmas Concert

Many churches and organizations put on Christmas concerts during the holiday season. There is just something special about listening to Christmas music performed live. If you get the chance to go enjoy a Christmas concert do it, but don’t stress if you can’t.

Visit a Life-Size Nativity

There are many large nativities typically located at church buildings. Many areas also have live nativities with people acting out the story and real animals.

See Christmas Lights

Go and see Christmas lights and talk about how Christ is the light of the world.

Watch a Christmas Movie

There are so many great Christmas movies out there and many of them focus on Christ. A couple of our favorite Christ-centered Christmas movies are The Christmas Box and The Ultimate Gift.

Give Service

There are many ways of giving service during the holiday season. You could do the 12 days of Christmas to a family, donate to the food bank, purchase gifts for a child that wouldn’t get any and so many more ways.

Have a Birthday Party for Jesus

At our house my kids love birthdays, so having a birthday party for Jesus is a great way to focus on Christ this Christmas. You could even make a special cake and sing happy birthday.

Write a Letter to the Savior

Since the person having a birthday typically gets a gift you could discuss as a family what you can give Christ for his birthday.

Write down what your gift will be in a letter to the Savoir and save it to look back on as the years go by.

Go on a Nativity Scavenger Hunt

Dollie at Joy in the Home has a fun printable Nativity Scavenger hunt perfect for going on a drive to look for Christmas lights. Get the details and printable here.

Go on a Journey to Bethlehem

Growing up on night during the holiday season we would go on a journey to Bethlehem we would pack our dinner and turn off all the lights except the Star at the top of the Christmas tree and journey to find the star like the wise men. As we journeyed we would make stops to eat a little dinner and read part of the Christmas story.