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Podcast 15 - Christmas Traditions
0 Playsin 14 hours
Join us as we discuss some fun Christmas traditions
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Transcript
Introduction to Christmas Edition
00:00:10
Speaker
Hey, welcome back to the Grove Hill podcast. Excited to have you here with us today. It's a kind of a special edition for us. We're taking a little step away from our series that we've been doing on social media and the impact it's having on your family and relationships and churches because we are here just a couple days shy of the...
00:00:29
Speaker
Hap, hap, happiest day of the year, right? Christmas Day. And we'll talk about a few things with that.
Favorite Childhood Traditions
00:00:35
Speaker
um Primarily the traditions we experience. So let's start at a pretty safe, neutral kind of place. What's your favorite Christmas tradition you remember from your childhood growing up?
00:00:47
Speaker
yeah y'all don't laugh i'm already laughing i mean if you know me if you know anybody with the last name ballard that's from oklahoma there's a tradition that is outside of most people's tradition it's tamales man uh there is tamales every christmas of the ballard household and it is one of those you know people are like know as a pastor i guess i should feel little bit bad about this but You know, we would read Scripture about what, you know, the birth of Christ looked like in that season. But, man, one of the things that I remember as a kid is tamales every single year. And it's just a cool thing that I kind of harken back to, and I've started to throw it down to my kids. And don't know they're
Christmas Traditions and Biblical Connections
00:01:36
Speaker
on board yet, but tamales all the way. Do you know what this connected back to? Did somebody like misread Jesus' name as Jesus? Exactly. hey so my grandmother has hispanic heritage and she kind of infiltrated the christmas time and yeah that's that's what we do it's good very cool so what about you my favorite two have no spiritual application at all uh good we opened presents on christmas eve and so that was a fully selfish uh tradition that i got to see my presents the night before christmas And then we would thread with a needle, pieces of popcorn and cranberries and hang them on the Christmas tree. those are two favorite from growing up. Like said, no spiritual application.
00:02:18
Speaker
Very cool. I think for me, it it was about family. ah My mom had a big, still does, has a big family down in South Georgia. We would wake up every Christmas morning up in the presents we had at home. But as soon as we could, we were in the car, make the two-hour trip to grandmothers. and and And there were two reasons. none one is the One is the mature, sweet side of it. It was great to see all my family. I love my family still to this day, too. I hate that I live like 10 hours from a home. I can't go see them all the time. The selfish side of it was it was like kind of multiplying your toys because your cousins brought out all their toys. And so um you know, new go-kart.
00:02:54
Speaker
You didn't have to have it. Your cousin had one. know we We would do that kind of stuff. It was fun. So there's all kinds of traditions that you do, some that are implemented by your family, some that come from culture, some that obviously are very grounded in the Bible. And we want to talk about a few of those today. Obviously, gift-giving is a huge part of the Christmas season. Don't feel guilty about that because it's actually modeled in the story of Christmas, right?
00:03:19
Speaker
Yes, sir. Tell me about that, Kyle. Well, you have, one, the ultimate gift that was provided for us that provided salvation, and that was in the package of a tiny little baby wrapped in sparkling clothes. And so that gift and then just the idea that the wise men offer gifts to the Savior, save Savior, Savior, Save your. Save yours and yours. um But yeah, it's this idea that we're giving of ou ourselves to someone else to show appreciation and care. And so, yeah, there's a a big, big focus on that. Probably too much right now. Kind of out of hand, for sure. Because the the gifts come out and the credit card bill goes up. Oh, right. And we live way beyond our means. so yes ah Two others that are really important, and and two that I would say you and I probably enjoy, I think he does as well, celebrating and eating.
00:04:11
Speaker
oh yeah. You caught You caught me. Oh, you started off the tamales, dude. You did bring the food into it. I know, I know. yeah Yeah, it's a big part of it. um I mean, everything about Jesus' life,
00:04:25
Speaker
kind of hung on yeah the celebrations, the festivals, the Passover feast, those kinds of things. If you know anything about Middle Eastern culture, all the way back to that day, but even to this day, gathering around the table with somebody is something real sweet and sentimental and and intimate. Another one, a pretty easy connection to the story, is the use of lights.
00:04:46
Speaker
Are you big light guy? I do. I like lights. In my previous life of working with the city, we would always put up Christmas lights, and it was always really cool. Once that Christmas tree would get lit, I'm like, man, this is like 10,000 lights or 20,000 lights. I was always enamored by lights. I think most guys, I mean, come on, Clark Griswold, most people, they're like, ah, you know, this is great. And I think it's cool how the illumination that God uses throughout Scripture, He also uses it in His announcement to the Shepherds. shepherds, you know, you see the use of lights, you know, into the wise men. It's amazing how God uses the illumination in this and how we can still see traces of that in our celebration today. Okay. Important question. Yes. White lights or colored lights? Ooh.
00:05:41
Speaker
On a Christmas tree inside, colored lights for us. I am more specific on white lights, but warm white lights. Yeah, i'm not the I don't like the blue, like the whitish blue. They've got to be warm white. yeah man i'm not a I'm sorry if this offends me anybody. I'm not a big fan of the blue lights at Christmas because I feel it looks like you're walking up to a police precinct or something. i just i don't And I don't get the connection. What is the connection? See, like the blue lights because it feels like snow. or Oh, okay. All right. Yeah. ah You know, there's a lot of these traditions that I think lose their impact because of where we
Personal Christmas Tree Traditions
00:06:16
Speaker
live, those kinds of things. If you've ever been, had the opportunity to go somewhere out remote, like Wyoming, Montana, away from light pollution and see the stars at night and imagine what those shepherds must have felt that night when suddenly there's one light that's way bigger and brighter than anything else.
00:06:32
Speaker
that's That's a pretty cool part of the story. There's some cultural things that we've thrown there along the way, too. For instance, Christmas trees, which obviously weren't part of the original Christmas story.
00:06:43
Speaker
christmas man Christmas trees, they come in all shapes and sizes. My favorite is still Charlie Brown's. I mean, you just can't beat Charlie's story. um Any funny stories with your Christmas tree? Yeah, my wife and I always have a a Christmas tree. we always fresh cut every single year. yeah And it's always about 5' to 5'5". Because when we first got married, we had no money and you paid for the size of the tree. And we started out with like a 4 1⁄2 foot tree. you know But since then, because it's so dear to us, we've never gotten a big tree. We always like a small, tiny tree. and sos
Role of Santa Claus in Christmas
00:07:20
Speaker
Something we love doing. So if you win the lottery, you're still sticking with the 5-2 tree. Yeah, because it's more sentimental to my wife and I. That's pretty cool. i yes What about you? what's What's your flavor with trees?
00:07:29
Speaker
I guess I'm artificial. Okay. i had to because i got to my I've done that with A real tree, I'll be honest, I'm not a green thumb at all. I'm like, whoops, forgot to. Oh, I didn't say it was a live December 25th. At that point, it is. So it turns into a trolley practice. Yeah, for sure. A lot of criteria. I'm going show you my age. we We've always done a mixture. We've done lights. I mean, ah artificial, we've done real. But there was one year we went the whole aluminum tree. You remember those? aluminum tree and you had the light with the spinning wheel that changed the colors on it. Most grotesque looking thing I've ever seen in my life. But as a kid, it was pretty impressive. I thought, man, we are we are twenty we're century family here. expected George Jetson to come rolling in or something. So that's something different. Obviously, we have added the element of Santa Claus. He's a huge part of the story now. I love the attempts that families make to connect it back to the life of St. Nicholas, those kinds of things, and even taking the aspect of him giving and not worrying about receiving, those kinds of things.
00:08:33
Speaker
But let's be honest, it has nothing to do with the story of Jesus. um I don't... i don't knock families that continue that tradition. I think there's a sweet way to connect it and use it. I don't knock families who say we're not going to involve our kid in that. I can see the importance of it. So let's just talk about one aspect of it. Parents, though, ask themselves this question a lot these days.
00:08:56
Speaker
If I keep pushing a fable on my children to the day they find out that it was a fable, then are they going to question me on everything else try tell them? Right. We tell them Tooth Fairy is real. Yep. Santa is real. Yep. All these things. And we tell them Jesus is real. Yeah. um When the others fail, are they going to question the Jesus, right? Right. And so we kind of clump it into that category. Mm-hmm. Personally, our family separates them very heavily um to the point where we explain Santa to Noah at about two years, and he goes, that can't happen. And so then we never adopted it into our household.
00:09:28
Speaker
we Yeah, we've got to be very careful what we, and know this is going to sound controversial, what we deify. Because in talking about deify, it just means making a god out of something. Right.
00:09:43
Speaker
don't you know necessarily see such ah an importance to tell the truth in these areas, their kids do question when they turn 16, 17, 18. They're like, they're fake just like the tooth fairy. It creates the question in that person's mind more than it does create an absolute trust in who God is.
Handling the Santa Tradition
00:10:01
Speaker
I think if you're gonna do the Santa thing, and and personally we did with our kids, but you have to be intentional about getting to that age of accountability where you have to sit down and have a kind of a conversation with them it says, you know, we didn't push this because we wanted you to really believe in a lie. We pushed it because it brought a different flavor to the thing, but there's,
00:10:19
Speaker
As you go through life, there's just certain things you want to believe are there that you want to have hope in, you want to hang your hat on, but they just don't exist. Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, honest politicians, they're just not out there So you just got to you just gotta to hope for the best. but um Yeah, be very careful on that. I do think it's a fun little aspect for the kids.
00:10:40
Speaker
I do, again, think we're starting to take things a little bit too far. The whole elf on the shelf thing starts to add to the problem. Hopefully your six-year-old's not listening to this podcast. We should have put a disclaimer on this one. And if
Hallmark Christmas Movies
00:10:52
Speaker
they are, you're welcome. Yeah, there you There's your intro to the story, the conversation. ah One other that we all like to joke about, the Hallmark movies. This is a cultural tradition. I them.
00:11:08
Speaker
I'm willing to bet, and in fact, somebody wants to take us up on this challenge. Maybe we'll do it the next episode. I'm willing to bet that given five minutes, the three of us together working could come up with the same script for every Hallmark movie there is. Oh, yes.
00:11:21
Speaker
you know i It's just it' so predictable and yet every year... The Hallmark producers right now are saying, you're probably right. yeah yeah My wife and I, we watch them. We like them. But we have this game that once they kiss, you can count and before you reach 30, the credits are rolling. no And so it's like it's it's at the end of every single movie, boom, it's over. You know what's interesting is about 90, 95% of them, I haven't seen them all, but about 99% of them are actually very pure movies. Absolutely. In that regard. they don't It's not like they're all making out every time or whatever. it's they There's this innocence that kind of hangs on to the end of the movie. And for that, I appreciate it. I personally watch the movies with my wife, not because I enjoy them, but because I enjoy the mistletoe afterwards.
Teaching Through Traditions
00:12:06
Speaker
you know Me and my wife get to you know reenact the show. We get to pretend like we were the high school sweethearts that met on the bond. is you know You wear your flannel that day, don't you? I do, I do. Work on the plumbing underneath the sink. I can see Ridley as one of those, you know, working out at the Christmas tree farm. um That's it.
00:12:24
Speaker
ill be you I'll be your guy. I'll be your guy. So let's talk real quick, a little bit of time we got left. Let's talk about how we take traditions, the ones that are biblical, the ones that are cultural, the ones that are just familial, that have come out of our families. How do we use those as teaching moments for our kids? Because we don't, last thing we don't want to do is make them miss the story of Jesus and why he came. Yeah, absolutely. It's not bad to have a tradition that has no spiritual right application or anything like that. That's for sure. But we definitely need to implement ones that do just so we have that core memory for our our kids and maybe they can carry it on with their kids. Um, but start to assess them. Look at all your traditions. Look, look at why you do them.
00:13:08
Speaker
Um, and maybe bring in some new, more important spiritually, uh, traditions into your household. Uh, whether it be, you know, following a ah calendar of reading of the scripture, um, uh, reading the Christmas story on Christmas morning, which was interesting.
00:13:23
Speaker
And youth group on Wednesday, I asked that i said, how many families read the Christmas story on Christmas? It was very few. And so um we read it that night just so that they had that exposure to it. But I would encourage you absolutely to do that. Read the story.
00:13:39
Speaker
yeah I would say evaluate what are you putting heavy emphasis on it right now? or you know what are you putting heavy emphasis on Traditional, you know as far as traditions that you've had in the family for X amount of years What is a heavy impact? What is a light impact whenever you look at the next?
00:13:59
Speaker
10 years of that kid's life. Yeah, because sometimes we put so much heavy impact on What scooter we're gonna buy the kid and guess what six months later? They're playing with something else. Yeah, so If we need to be putting heavy impact on the things like, man, maybe we're reading the story. Moms and dads out there, I'll go ahead and give you guys a challenge.
00:14:20
Speaker
Start a tradition this year to maybe read the Christmas story from God's Word and just start something new. Hey, it doesn't matter if your kid is graduating high school this year. Start it this year because your kids will see the impact that it will make in the long run. Yeah. I'm going to throw some out there. going re-include the ones you talked about, some ideas, some tips out there. If we're
Meaningful Traditions and Family Rituals
00:14:41
Speaker
releasing this, this is probably coming out a day or two before Christmas. So you may go, it's a little late this year for some of these. But I would say write them down, put them in your mind for next year. Some great ideas to just kind of keep the...
00:14:53
Speaker
Again, we don't think things are really bad, the traditions. they Most some of them are very amoral. um But to find a way to connect them back to the story of Jesus and what happened in that that first story, that first Christmas 2,000 years ago. I think reading the story, absolutely essential, whether you do it over the 25 days to Christmas or leave the night before or the day of.
00:15:15
Speaker
I think finding a way to serve during the Christmas season keeps the emphasis on all of the giving. love that. Lots of nonprofit organizations in the community that are doing things around this time of year, especially feeding families and helping with gifting and stuff. Our church is participating when actually Saturday after Christmas. So there's great places to connect. act If you can't find it, call local church. They can help you find one of those places to serve. I think another one is that you um you find a family to pray for during the season that you know has needs specifically in your community and maybe even adopt that family. Take them a ham, take them you know a bike or you know something to help them participate in the season.
00:15:56
Speaker
And then another one, and this one i would rank right up there as almost impossible for all of us. We have such a hard time with this, and that is finding 10 minutes to be still as a family.
00:16:07
Speaker
um We were talking about, we started off the the episode here talking about favorite traditions. I will never forget countless number of years, Christmas Eve, before my mom and dad finally got me off to bed, that every Christmas Eve, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir would have a Christmas concert on TV.
00:16:28
Speaker
And I didn't know whether not the Mormons were pagan or Christian. That didn't matter to because they were all Christian hymns that they sang. And remember crawling every Christmas Eve, think I'm gonna fix it, get emotional about this, crawling every Christmas Eve right up next to my dad, snuggling my dad on the couch, and listening to that incredible music.
Creating Special Memories
00:16:46
Speaker
And to this day, when I hear one of those songs, it takes me back to that moment, just reflecting. So pretty cool stuff. You can make it special. And again, be real mindful that as your kids are growing older, their traditions need to grow with them.
00:17:01
Speaker
ah Nobody's doing Elf on the Shelf with their 19-year-old. And to look back on our last few episodes, put your phone away. Yes. Put your phone away. Take a few pictures, put it away. Forget your phone. Yep.
00:17:13
Speaker
Yeah. Here's a great idea. Let's try this. I know it's probably 24 hours before Christmas. Make sure you can do it a little bit sooner. Go get a box, put your phone in it, wrap it up, put it under all the other gifts, and don't open it again until
Final Thoughts and Invitation
00:17:28
Speaker
Christmas lunch. Open that one at New Year's. There you go. There you go.
00:17:32
Speaker
Hey, thanks for joining us for this episode. um yeah we Yeah, we always enjoy having the opportunity just to break away and talk about some other different things, different subjects that are on your mind. We will be back next week, jumping back into our our series on social media and what we can do about social media in our lives and how to tame that animal, that beast.
00:17:52
Speaker
But as you and your family are in the middle of your holiday celebration or getting ready to enjoy that time, the three of us want to encourage you, make the most of this. And in our mind, the but way to make the most of it is to point your family back to Jesus through this season.
00:18:06
Speaker
We would love to have you at our church throughout the season. Christmas Eve services, New Year's Eve services every Sunday. um Go to our website. You'll find times and locations for all of that stuff.
00:18:16
Speaker
Click like, share this information, and we will look forward to hearing you back with us next week. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. you guys.