To get the most out of this holiday, place your energy into helping your family celebrate with grace. Turn to God and His word to understand how to celebrate the season with a rooted recognition of the season’s true meaning. Place a focus throughout the upcoming weeks on bringing God into your hearts, home, and holidays.
Give through your words
Your family may know that, when someone extends a kind gesture or gives them a gift, the polite reply is “thank you.” Although it can be easy to rattle off the standard response out of pure habit, sometimes its effect wears off. This season, encourage your family to go the extra mile to truly let those around them know the positive impact they have in their life.
Spend a day writing thoughtful holiday cards to those you care about. Season’s greetings are perfect opportunities to let people know how much you appreciate the role they play year round in your life. Using phases like, “you matter,” or “I appreciate your part in my life,” can truly make a difference to friends and family, especially those whose giving nature may go unnoticed at times. This will help you family understand the power of giving yourself to others.
Speak to God every day
God is not only someone we pray to in our times of hardship and need. God is a friend, and should be treated as such. Make conversations with Him a regular part of your family’s routine. If your children have yet to get into the habit of comfortably talking to God, lead by example. Intentionally speak to God about everything- big or small, and light-hearted or heavy. Teach your kids that God’s ears are eagerly open and that they don’t necessarily only have to pray when they are in need of guidance. Make the conversation an opportunity for family bonding. At the end of each day, do a nightly prayer together to reconnect with one another and God.
Be gracious
Celebrating the holidays with grace can be difficult, especially for your little ones. When caught up in the chaos of seasonal cheer, parties, and gift shopping, fending off feelings of greed or stress may fall by the wayside. To live with grace as God does is to live brightly, softly, and with a radiating warmth that touches all around you. In order to tap into this, encourage your family to be intentional about living in the moment each day. Before going to your big holiday gathering, work with your children on showing gratitude for gifts they may receive. Excitement can easily cause them to forget to pause and take a moment to show sincere gratitude towards their gift giver.
Another way that God and Jesus Christ show grace is by going out of their way to help others. Sacrificing your precious time to ensure that the lives of those around you can be bettered, even in small ways, is a tremendous demonstration of grace. Encourage your family to be mindful of ways they can show kindness.
Be Grateful
One of the first steps to living with the grace of God is by being mindful of all that your family cherishes, not only during the holiday season but throughout the entire year. Counting your blessings each week provides a reminder of how rich your family truly is, and can contribute to an overall positive attitude.
Have your family keep a gratitude journal and encourage them to write down things, moments, and people for which they are grateful. Challenge them to tune into these entries and add to them during moments when they’re feeling particularly negative. Reminding yourself of how blessed you really are is a sure fire way of purging negativity and resentment from your heart. Bond with your family at the end of the week and discuss all the things you’ve written in your journals.
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