Christ Centered Christmas: Decorating for Christmas

Organization is a big part of being able to keep your traditions centered on Christ. Every year begin preparing for Christmas by buying an inexpensive notebook to jot down all ideas and plans with an overall view of focusing more on the Savior. This can be a three-ring binder, a composition book, or a simple spiral book. You can decorate it with your scrapbook paper stash to make it look festive. You want something durable because you will be seeing a lot of this notebook in the coming weeks. A small notebook is easy to carry around with you so it is readily accessible for when the spirit hits you.

The Christmas planning notebook may be divided into sections such as:
*Budget
*Gift lists
*Menus, recipes, and baking ideas
*Calendar
*Christ centered traditions
*Spiritual thoughts and ideas for family lessons or study
*Service
*Cards and letters to write
*Ideas for children and family activities
*Service ideas and plans
*Anything else you need to write down.

Start organizing sections in the notebook early, even before Halloween, and add ideas and plans as you think of them. The entire purpose of this Christmas planning book is to help your family have the time and energy to focus more of your efforts and time together on the most important part of Christmas, the Savior.

This notebook will be your 'brains' for the next few weeks and next year you will have a great resource to draw from.

Now that you have your notebook and you are well on the way to being organized, we want to share with you some of our ideas and traditions for having a Christ Centered Christmas. The posts on this blog will provide you with various ideas that you can file away in your notebook and utilize to make your holiday Christ centered.

PLEASE SHARE any ideas you have with us. Either comment on an existing post or email Sarah at famtreeclimber AT hotmail DOT com.

We are excited to share the true meaning of Christmas together!

Monday, December 1, 2008

Decorating for Christmas

Now that Thanksgiving is over it is time to get into the Christmas spirit. I am always excited to pull out the Christmas decorations and transform the house. I love having Christmas lights all over inside the house, garlands, and of course the Christmas tree. I love the atmosphere that all these decorations create. There are many ways to make the decorations in your home Christ centered. Obviously there is the nativity, or in my case multiple nativities, but there are also other things you can use to emphasize the true reason for Christmas.

One idea is to display beautiful pictures of the Savior in prominent places in your home. We have moved pictures to place on easels with evergreens around to make them become an important part of the Christmas decorating of our home. An inexpensive source for pictures are old calendars or church publications.

What do you do in your home to emphasis Christ in your decorations?