Do you feel like Christmas is making your kids ungrateful? I’ve gathered together 12 Christmas Devotionals For My Ungrateful Kids and I thought I would share them with you, too.
Making Christmas meaningful in an age of materialism is no easy task, but this year we’re doing all we can to have a gospel-centered holiday with our kids.
In a nutshell, here’s our plan:
No Christmas Gifts
As we explained in our previous post, we’re not giving our kids gifts this year. Don’t worry: our kids will in no way feel deprived this Christmas. Grandparents, aunts, and uncles are still buying them gifts. They always get way too much at Christmas to the point where we don’t even know what to get for them!
Giving to Those Most in Need
In lieu of giving each other Christmas gifts, each member of our family will have a $100 allowance to give to a charity of their choice. We’ve been showing them Compassion’s Christmas Gift Catalogue and talking to them about the orphanage in Colombia our church is involved with. We’re telling the kids these gifts are one way we can give a present to Jesus on his birthday.
Bradley loves looking through Compassion’s catalogue (and he loves knowing he gets to help our twin 1-year-olds spend their $100).
Yes, this means we are spending more this year on Christmas presents than we have done in years past, but it’s more fun to think about spending our money on people who are truly in need.
12 Christmas Devotionals For My Ungrateful Kids
For twelve nights leading up to Christmas morning we will be having special devotions with our kids. Yes, we know the “12 Day of Christmas” are traditionally the days between Christmas and Epiphany, but this is our spin on the tradition.
Here’s the plan: Each night we will be having the kids unwrap special packages that we have sitting under our Christmas tree. Most of these “gifts” will be simple items. Most of them will be things they already own that we just wrapped and put under the tree. Some of them will be “symbolic” gifts: tokens that are meant to remind them of something else. Each gift will serve an as object lesson for that night’s devotion.
Each night, with these Christmas devotionals, the kids will be reminded of two things:
- We should be thankful for the many gifts God has already given to us in our lives, and
- All of God’s gifts are signs that point to his greatest gift: His Son.
Here are the 12 Christmas Devotionals For My Ungrateful Kids, in order:
1. God’s Word: Thank God for the gift of the Scriptures (we’ll wrap one of the kids’ Bibles they already own)
2. Income: Thank God for the ability to work and make a living (we’ll be giving them coins)
3. Nourishment: Thank God for giving us our daily bread (each of the boys will receive”snack packs” of food for them to eat)
4. Shelter: Thank God for giving us warmth and shelter (we’ll wrap a candle for each of the boys)
5. The Body of Christ: Thank God for the gift of the church (we’ll be giving them a doll to represent Christ’s body, made up of many parts)
6. Family: Thank God for the gift of Mom, Dad, and siblings (we’ll be giving the kids a picture of our family)
7. Friends: Thank God for the gift of friendship (we’ll be giving them pictures of their friends)
8. Health: Thank God for the gift of good health (Trisha’s stethoscope will be in this package)
9. Wisdom: Thank God for the ability to think and the gifts of knowledge and understanding (we’ll be giving them a notebook to write in)
10. The Spirit: Thank God for the gift of His Holy Spirit (we’ll wrap a dove Christmas ornament from our tree)
11. Clothing: Thank God for the gift of clothes (we’ll be buying the kids new PJs to sleep in on Christmas Eve)
12. Jesus: Thank God for the gift of His Son (we bought a new illustrated Christmas story book for the home, so we’re using it to read the Christmas story to our kids)
So, this is our attempt at making Christmas a memorable and meaningful celebration in our home.
Be looking for updates on our blog leading up to Christmas. We’ll let give you more details about the devotionals and let you know how the kids are liking it.
What do you think? Any suggestions for us for more Christmas Devotionals for our ungrateful kids? What are you doing in your home this year?
More Christian Christmas Tips and Ideas:
- Planning a More Joyful Christmas
- A Unique Approach to Helping Your Kids See Christ at Christmas
- How to Use Christmas Carols for Family Devotions
- Important Lessons from the Wise Men: A Family Discussion Guide
- 10 Easy Ways Your Family Can Share the Gospel Through the Holidays
I absolutely LOVE this idea! We stopped doing gifts 9 years ago and this year has our hearts LONGING to do more with a Christ Centered Christmas! I will be sharing this with my husband and seeing how we can incorporate your focuses for the 12 days of Christmas!
LOVE IT!!!
Great ideas, Luke and Trisha! Thanks for sharing!
I LOVE these ideas! Thank you so much for sharing this! I think I might run with this too! Thanks for sharing and linking up at Simply Helping Him! Blessings!
I hope there is something there that might bless your family 🙂
Love that you’re making it meaningful! Usually I am totally on top all this holiday stuff (planning meaningful things, I mean) but this year for some reason I’m really dropping the ball. I think it’s because this is the first year we’re really doing full-time school and I don’t want to break for too long or add too much to what we are already doing. Well, I guess we are doing some things, just not as much as usual =)
Neat that you are choosing to bless others! Thanks for sharing these ideas with us at Trivium Tuesdays!
I feel ya… the older my kids get and the more involved with school and extracurricular activities, the harder it is to add in extras. My husband has really taken my idea and is running with it. He is developing devotionals to go with every day, so it takes a lot of work off of my plate (he’s pretty awesome like that). I’m not one who thinks you need to do a LOT to make Christmas or other holidays meaningful, just enough to help focus hearts and minds on what is important 🙂
I like how you focus on the blessings/gifts we already have and that they all point to Jesus.
Yes, we start our devotions tonight and Im very excited. I am praying my children will be blessed and this will be a memorable experience for them. Hoping these simple gifts help. The lessons Luke has prepared to stick a little better 🙂
I love the idea of giving an allowance to a charity! We do three small gifts to each child, but I want to find a way to be more charitable as well, and do it in a way that includes the whole family. This is a great reminder to talk to my husband about it!
The devotionals were great, but I do not agree with the rest of it. I think you may be confusing greed and growth. You strive for more things by working and you expect God to bless you. I think this is overdoing it, especially at Christmas, when our heavenly Father gave us his best, his son.
Interesting thought, but I’m not quite following you. What “rest of it” are you not agreeing with? Giving to the less fortunate? Not giving our kids gifts to open on Christmas day? Having kids open token gifts leading up to Christmas? All of it?
I don’t really talk about “greed” in this article as much as I talk about gratitude—helping our kids take stock of all the the wonderful gifts God gives us throughout the year. Can you help me understand more what you’re talking about?
I don’t understand what you’re getting at here either, with the “greed.” They aren’t giving their kids anything for Christmas! Rather, they’re focusing on God’s Word, being thankful for what God has already given them, and giving to people around the world who are in need. I don’t know this family, but I think what they are doing is so admirable and not something many of us would be willing to do. I know I would have a very hard time not buying Christmas presents for my children. I get so much joy out of watching them open their presents. I just am so confused by your comment…maybe you read the blog post wrongly or misinterpreted it.
A few years ago, I studied Mike Slaughter’s book, “Christmas Is Not Your Birthday,” which really helped my children understand that they wouldn’t receive Xmas presents from Mom and Dad. For a gift for Jesus, the kids chose how much (from their piggy banks) they want to donate and we match that total amount. We’ve given to local families, Imagine No Malaria, and Heifer International. We rotate which family member gets to pick the flavor for Jesus’ birthday cake.
Nice ideas. I’ll have to remember this!
Love your ideas! Any chance you have a printable version of all the devotions??
Not yet. I am contemplating writing a book, however.
I love this and hope to see many others celebrating Christmas and Easter for what the holiday really stands for. Yes, it is difficult to be different BUT, our children learn from us and that is our job. Teach children to want “stuff” and they will always want “stuff” Teach children to honor God and our home and they will honor their lives.