How to Center Your Family on Christ During the Holidays

Be Proactive and Maintain Focus

Here's how you can survive Christmas as a family and not have your focus completely taken away: start early. Don't wait until December 15th. Start talking about the fact that Christmas is coming and what this time of the year is really about.

Stay focused. There are going to be all kinds of activities that can take your mind away from the glory of Christ and the humbling reality that Jesus came to rescue us from all the false gods that would capture our hearts. Be sure to look for ways to emphasize the spiritual over the material. This has become such an obsessively materialistic time of year.

Look for ways to emphasize the spiritual over the material.

It really is spiritual warfare. How can you always point your children and family to the spiritual content of this time of year? One of the things you can do is think about how to remind your family of the Gospel at every Christmas gathering. Look for ways to remind your family of the beauty of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Come, Let Us Adore Him

Paul David Tripp

Thirty-one daily readings from Paul David Tripp equip us to do the one thing that matters most each December—celebrating the glory of the incarnation of God's Son.

Another wonderful to do as a family is to memorize Scripture. How about use this season to memorize Luke 2? We did that as a family, and every Christmas, we would recite that passage together. That burned into our brains the core of the beauty of the coming of Jesus as our Savior.

Paul David Tripp (DMin, Westminster Theological Seminary) is a pastor, an award-winning author, and an international conference speaker. He has written numerous books, including Lead; Parenting; and the bestselling devotional New Morning Mercies. His not-for-profit ministry exists to connect the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life. Tripp lives in Philadelphia with his wife, Luella, and they have four grown children.