This is our non-traditional Christmas tree, because this year we monarchically decided to decorate our tree “old-fashioned”, thus striking down one of our beloved traditions of everyone hanging up their personal ornaments. The tree does look ravishing, however, and having a real tree is one tradition that will NEVER be changed. 
Christmas time is a time of traditions. For many, traditions that cannot be crossed, even if they do seem a little “old”, “silly” or “impractical”; traditions they are and remain.
There is something special about traditions. In a country that has resigned many of its principles and protocol already, people are curiously stubborn about burying traditions of Christmas time, such as: stockings, Christmas cards, mistletoe *blush*, decorating inside and out with lights and greenery, gift giving, and the baking of delicious and delectable things. All of these are untouchable traditions; if these did not happen then it would not feel like Christmas and you would be viewed as the Grinch, or worse, Scrooge!
The following are some of our traditions that mean the most to me:
M&M Christmas tree; a cute little wall hanging in the shape of a Christmas tree with 25 pockets that we fill with M&Ms, one to be given out to each child every night after advent.
Cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning; oh, yum. We don’t have any fixed recipe but after discovering this recipe we are fully convinced of its practicality for the rest of the generations.
Paper snowflakes; I had a fun and wonderful time doing that with little boys this year and now our lovely snowflakes are decorating the window panes. You take a circle of paper, fold it in half, once, twice, thrice, *snip, snip!*, open it up and you have a beautiful snowflake. I used an exacto knife for mine, but I wouldn’t recommend that for your 5 year old.
Drawing names to see who gives what gift. Of course, Mom and Dad and relatives and friends give gifts to us, but in a family of 9 kids when everyone is giving everyone else a gift, that amounts of a veritable mountain of assorted presents under the tree, so we draw names instead, i.e. Willy got Pieter, Pieter got me, I got Ben.
The holiday baking. Sugar cookies, gingerbread men, bon-bons, puppy chow, accompanied by eggnog, or, for those who are more sophisticated, eggnog lattes. Surprisingly, we have done little baking this season, even though it is the 6th of December, as we are engaged in bitter battles against persistent colds, but I think that we will be making some cookies later today.
Christmas time is already a crazy time, though, so you want to be careful not to be towed into celebrating someone else’s traditions, but at the same time, maintain that Christmas mood and cheer, and an open house and arms for those spirits whose homes do not possess a large number of roaring indians to brighten the atmosphere when it is foggy and gloomy outside.
What a wonderful time to try and instill into their hearts some of the joy that the whole world must have felt when Christ revealed Himself to its darkness. Imagine turning off all the lights in your house (it helps if you live in the middle of nowhere) and all the machines, sitting still for a moment to soak in the silence and darkness, then lighting one single candle. Your eyes will be immediately drawn to that pinpoint of light and the darkness shrieks away! It can do no other. Though, really, Jesus was more that just a weak, little candle; we are the candles, He was more like a glorious, all-victorious, burning, all-consuming sun in the sky. Just look at the difference between the world pre and post Christ’s life on earth. You can’t deny that there is a difference. It isn’t the effect of evolution, because the world was getting more and more degenerate, it’s the effect of God.
When I celebrate Christmas, I’m not only celebrating the fact that 2000 years ago my Lord came to the earth and loosed the bonds of death and sin, I’m celebrating my hope and knowledge that the world is getting better and that Jesus Christ is certainly coming back to reign triumphantly in a world that will be in submission to Him and Him only. The joy of Christmas isn’t only a past joy that seems far-off to most people, but it is past, present and future.
Anna
