<\/p>\n
As a pastor, I love talking to children about the true meaning of Christmas. When I ask children what they think of when they think of Christmas, they often respond with Santa, mischievous elves, presents, travel, and time with family. As a parent, I think of family traditions, making memories, spreading cheer, and sometimes, simply surviving the pace\u00a0of it all<\/span>. Behind the trappings and trimmings, however, is a larger spiritual reality and truth underpinning it all.<\/span><\/p>\n Christmas is\u00a0a birthday party for Jesus<\/span>.<\/span>\u00a0It gives me such joy to read the story of his birth to children (<\/span>‘Twas the Evening of Christmas<\/span><\/em>\u00a0by Glenys Nellist and\u00a0<\/span>Goodnight, Manger<\/span><\/em>\u00a0by Laura Sassi are favorites!), watch them create nativity scenes, and describe the Christian meaning of the candy cane. Did you know\u00a0<\/span>that a<\/span>\u00a0candy cane makes a “J” for Jesus and resembles a shepherd’s crook?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n In addition to shepherds, there are three kings bearing<\/span>\u00a0gifts in every nativity.<\/span>\u00a0We celebrate the kings’ visit to the baby Jesus after Christmas and at the beginning of every new year on Epiphany. Therefore, it’s appropriate to consider their gifts as a spiritual exercise of our own in the new year. What are three gifts that you could bring to Jesus, too? Maybe God has been prodding your heart to\u00a0<\/span>make a<\/span>\u00a0change, bless someone else, or step out for his glory. Write your gifts down and resolve to give them. After all, Christ has been born anew for you!<\/span><\/p>\n Photo credit: \u00a9GettyImages\/Milko<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As a pastor, I love talking to children about the true meaning of Christmas. When I ask children what they think of when they think of Christmas, they often respond with Santa, mischievous elves, presents, travel, and time with family. As a parent, I think of family traditions, making memories, spreading cheer, and sometimes, simply<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[72,3261,106,471],"class_list":{"0":"post-12147","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-christian-living","8":"tag-christian","9":"tag-resolutions","10":"tag-women","11":"tag-years"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}