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When I was a little girl, my mom had a set of these Angel Chimes that astounded me every single year. How could the angels spin when you lit the four small white candles below? Must be magic.

I loved November 12th. The local radio station flipped to all Christmas music the day after Remembrance Day, and sometime that week, we’d haul out our four foot artificial tree, pop it on the corner coffee table, and fill it with those vintage Christmas lights with the plastic star-shaped reflectors that required an ER visit if you ever stepped on one with your bare foot. Oh, and gold garland from years ago. Then came all sorts of handmade and store-bought ornaments, one on every branch. The moss-haired raffia angel sat at the top, and the tree always had way too much silver tinsel.

After church on Christmas Eve, we stayed up late and ate so many treats. Some years we’d get to sleep in the living room under the lights of the tree, and woke up while it was still dark to open our stockings. We ate chocolates and mandarin oranges for breakfast, and once everyone made it to the living room, we read the Christmas story and took turns opening our presents.

We weren’t well-to-do by any means, but my mom always made sure Christmas was special for us kids. She brought the holidays to life and always focussed on the reason we celebrate – Jesus!

I love traditions and I look forward to them each year. They are anchors, keeping us connected to our roots and giving us warmth and familiarity in the middle of the changes of life. When my husband and I first got married we had to sort through two sets of holiday traditions. Now that we have our own kids, we’re building our own family memories that we hope they will one day cherish. In these early years with young children, Christmas feels different than it used to. At first, that was difficult for me and I’ve allowed the stress to cloud my joy, but I’m learning how to get out of “holiday survival mode” and actually enjoy this season together.

We’ve made three major shifts in the past few years, and it’s been amazing. Here they are, in no particular order.

Make like Elsa and “let it go”.

I’ve shared before that I like things to be “just so”. All the ducks need to be lined up perfectly in order for me to be able to enjoy all the things. The ducks seem to have a mind of their own, though, and rarely fall in! With a great sigh of relief, I’m learning to choose life over perfection. Can I just say that it is beautiful?

Less is more.

Last year we left some of our decorations in the box. We researched our gifts before we went shopping and finished most of it before the beginning of December. We sat down ahead of time and chose our family Christmas activities, with room in the schedule for a splash of spontaneity (and the inevitable sick day). We said no to some of our regular traditions in favour of creating new ones. There was room to breathe, and that made all the difference for me.

Worship the King!

Every year I have to decide what Christmas is going to be about for me, and in turn for our family. Kindness is important. So is generosity. But these flow out of our worship of Jesus Christ, the King of Kings! It seems like it should come so easily because we hear it so often – O Come Let Us Adore Him. Jesus is the Reason for the Season. Keep Christ in Christmas. Look for the Cross on the Cradle. And yet, slogans don’t work in our hearts the way the Holy Spirit does. I’ve found Christmas to be one of my favourite times to dig deeper into the Word and life of Jesus and discover Him drawing near to me, finding His love all over again. In that, I can’t help but weave worship into the fabric of our family’s celebrations! In the big and the small, when things work out and when they don’t, I am praying that my kids would see Jesus.

My husband and I have agreed: in this season, we’re in what we call “Parent Christmas” mode. We don’t need big Christmas surprises from one another – we really just want to watch our kids squeal with delight and see the wonder in their eyes. Thankfully, it doesn’t have to come at great financial cost, with overloaded schedules and a bad case of the gimmies.

Praise the Lord that we can trust Him to redeem the Christmas season!

And that doesn’t cost a dime.