Lights, Advents, Gingerbread & other Christmas traditions

I love Christmas traditions. Our family has a new one. Well, maybe not new, just altered. Christmas for me will never be the same. We've always enjoyed looking at Christmas lights. This year we started on Thanksgiving with a bike ride through streets behind our house finding all those who were quick to get their lights up. It was wonderful. (And a little scary, Jeffrey still doesn't quite understand the important dynamics between cards and bikes.) But our (almost) nightly trips to the Mesa temple grounds to see the lights are fantastic. We usually arrive before dark, before it's crowded, to meet with some of the missionaries. (*Jeffrey has been so funny in those meetings) We stroll the grounds just as dusk turns to inky night and the lights brighten in contrast.


There's a beautiful full sized Nativity. Another replica of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah writing about Jesus Christ stands next to Joseph leading the donkey with Mary on its back. All surround by thousands and thousands of lights scattered across the grounds leading up to the Temple. I love being there before the crowds come, but I also love seeing the busy sidewalks of people crowding around the displays and listening to the narrations...and especially watching the missionaries talking to people-sharing their powerful testimonies of Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world.

Every carol, and every Christmas scripture has such a powerful missionary theme. After reading Luke 2, I felt so blessed for this opportunity to be like shepherds...after they learned of Christ, they sought after him and then went abroad to tell everyone about their experience. What a wonderful way to spend Christmas-Helping people find Jesus Christ.

All roads may lead to Rome, but only through Christ can we hope to find the path back to our Father in Heaven.

Learning more about Jesus Christ and His gospel, understanding why we need a Savior, blesses every aspect of my life especially in regards to my family. Everyday, we are work on being a stronger family and helping each other. The Monday after Thanksgiving, we build gingerbread houses and turn them into a village.

I started the first year we moved to California, and while the tradition has had its off years, it's something I hope the kids will always remember. As part of this special family night, we talk about how we can build a stronger home life for our family. Great families just don't happen. It takes people working together and consciously striving for it.

Jeff's master piece (with mom's artistic direction)

by Amanda

total group effort

I love Christmas stars!

(Somebody always wants mess things up!)

We also discuss the gift that God gave us in His Son that allows our family to be together forever. We have a little manager (this year, just a basket), that is empty. I buy straw to put in the basket, one piece at a time for each kind thing a member of the family does for someone else. On Christmas Eve, we plan to lay a baby doll in a manger filled with soft straw. The goal isn't just to have a full basket (no shoving someone out of the way to race and put a straw in the basket!), but to have softer hearts more kindly disposed to the ones we love most. Patiently, we wait for Christmas. We have all kinds of different advent calendars. This year, Grandma Brasher sent boxes with a special treat for each day. We also have a cute sticker Nativity that Jeffrey and Dad have been working on. My favorite, is a book that relates the history of the advent. It's titled, Waiting for Christmas. Some years, part of our nativity includes only putting out selected pieces of the Nativity sets we have. For example, first we set out all the Mary figurines...and how we can learn from her story; then Joseph, the creche & making room for Christ, the Shepherds in receiving and sharing the good news, the angels (I wonder where we were that day!), and then the baby Jesus on Christmas Eve. (The wise men come on New Year's when we talk about looking for him each day of the New Year. They're my favorite.)

So many things that make Christmas wonderful.....

* Jeffrey in the meetings-I'll have to explain that another day