So Much Christmas Stuff

ideas, tips, resources, let's go!

It’s December! Elfs are shelfing, unless you, like me, hate that with a deep passion and don’t do it.

This month’s Kids + Faith Newsletter is a great big Christmas extravaganza, but here’s the thing. I can’t cover it all here, so this is the one where you are going to want to jump into those comments to ask about whatever was left out.

Here’s what we will talk about:

• How to spiral the Christmas story - aka make it smaller on purpose and layer on complexity over time.

• Vocabulary Shmabulary - a simple way to approach the word ‘virgin’

• What you might want to Skip-and-Save - aka hold off on purpose until your kid can better engage what that piece of the Bible is really about

• Which attributes of God you could highlight for your kiddo as you practice God-Centered Storytelling - aka making God the main character

And again, when you get to the end, leave a comment and ask about anything else Christmas.

(Also, if Spiraling, God-Centered Storytelling or Skip-and-Save are new to you, they get a whole lot of love in my book Woven: Nurturing a Faith Your Kid Doesn’t Have to Heal From.)

Before we dive in, though, I want to say one small thing, if you’ll allow me.

The Christmas story is a global story. This is God and the world. Good news. Great joy. All people.

Are we people? Then Christmas is for us.

But also, Christmas is not just for you. It’s not just for me.

Hyper-individualism is a lens that will distort what God has done in coming to us, becoming one of us. And when Christmas arrives and we are tender to the mourning of the world, we may be tempted to see it as a relief for the wrong reasons—as an escape or a break from what’s so hard.

Christmas is offering relief, but that’s because the world, every crevice of creation, will be brought from broken to whole, wounded to healed, lost to found, because God simply will not allow for it to end any other way.

So let’s invite our kids into that, shall we? On we go.

Spiraling is when you make the story smaller on purpose, layering ideas and complexity as your kid grows. Spiral learning asks: How do you tell Christmas for kids at different ages and stages?

Ages 1-4 - The Age When All the Stories Show God is Good

The big idea for very young kids is simply this: God is good because God gave us baby Jesus.

Look for play-based entries into the story.

Play with baby dolls. Play with nativity pieces. Be a donkey and let them ride on your back. Play birthday party. Play play play.

To this point, use songs!

Here are three I love from an album called Jump for Joy by Singin’ Praise Tots

• Oh What A Special Night

• He is Born!

• Who was There That First Christmas Day?

The magic phrase for this age: Thank you God for baby Jesus!

This age is generally too young for “Jesus is God”, but “Jesus is here, God’s son!” works well too.

A risk to avoid

Be careful of making the story too big, such as talking about what Jesus would grow up to be and do. The bigger story is so important, but for Christmas, stay in this story about this baby. It’s important all to itself. 

(P.S. This is why next week’s newsletter will be all about the incarnation—what it means and why it matters aka why you should not be talking about Good Friday and Easter on Christmas. More on that later.)

Ages 5-8 - The Story Sponge Age

The big idea for this age is to expand the story, introducing new details and characters to bring it to life in their imaginations and hearts.

Break the story into smaller pieces.

This is a long story if you try to do it all, and around here, we do less on purpose. Try breaking the big Christmas story into 5 mini stories:

• Angel visits Mary

• Joseph’s Dream

• Jesus is born

• The Shepherds

• Wise Men Visit Jesus

This might seem like a Captain Obvious moment, but when you do this, tell each of these stories with their own beginning, middle and end. Look for what each of these mini stories shows about who God is or what God’s like.

Share helpful background facts

Include cool context details and background information, like:

• We don’t actually know Jesus’ real birthday, and that’s ok. 

• Jesus wasn’t born in a barn or cave, but most likely the ground floor of a house.

• There would have been girl and boy shepherds in the fields.

• The wisemen didn’t come on the scene until much later.

Sharing background facts does two big things: one, this is an age that tends to enjoy trivia and two, start young and normalize these details so that a kid doesn’t learn them later and think we held out on them or tricked them by not telling them that.

A risk to avoid

Be careful of telling the whole Christmas story in one go, especially on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, and expecting kids to be quiet listeners as you do. Remember, sometimes adults push for contemplation but kids want celebration. And celebration is a great response to Christmas.

9-12 The Age When They Lead the Way

The big idea with older childhood is to let their questions and observations drive the flow of conversation.

By older childhood, the Christmas story is often familiar. Some worry kids will then do the eye-roll “I know this already!” thing, but you can help avoid that if you:

• Lean into how impossible this all seems and invite your kids to share ways they may feel unsure about the story. Space for questions and even doubts helps faith formation.

• Lean into what the gospel writers are telling us about God and power. How does God use power? When might you expect God to use power, but They don’t? What humans have power in the story, or not? Why might that be important?

• Lean into whatever strikes them. You can say outright, “I know you know this story, but pretend for a minute you don’t know what happens.” I often find this set up helpful as well: “Imagine you’re [pick a character]. What would you be thinking or feeling? What would you be wondering about God right about now?”

What do you do about ‘virgin’ in the Christmas story?

I have a go-to phrase I use because it follows the principle:

• Something true.

• At their level.

• That you can build upon later.

Here it is: it seemed impossible! As in,

“Mary asked the angel, “How can this happen? This seems impossible.”

The angel said, “God’s spirit will come to you and make this happen. It does seem impossible, but nothing is impossible for God.”

You can build on why it seemed impossible along the way. Your family and kid might be fine with “There needs to be a sperm cell and egg cell to make a baby, and the angel was saying that God was somehow going to just make one!” or “Often a baby is made when two people have sex, but Mary had not, so a baby seemed impossible.” But if your kid isn’t ready for those, “It seemed impossible” goes a long way.

Skip-and-Save is when you respect both your child’s development and how the Bible works by saving certain elements until they are accessible. Here are two things I often see get thrown into the mix that I’d say don’t belong in our approach to Christmas with kids.

Herod’s Violence

Herod’s reaction to Jesus’ birth is a critical part of the gospel narrative. As adults, we see the recurring theme of Scripture: that the empire uses power, fear, and violence to coerce people while the reign of God is marked by self-sacrifice, love, and peace. The empire will never understand the kingdom of God, and often seems to be stronger. But it’s not, and this time, a mere baby shows us that.

Nevertheless, thematically, this part of the story is not a fit for kids. A young person might be ready for this element of the story when they… 

• Understand more about power, violence and oppression.

• Can also know the Exodus story and Pharaoh's same reaction.

• Understand how God shares power with people, and even if people misuse it, God doesn’t take it back.

• Have explored how God’s compassion and justice mean we find God moving to the margins and siding with the marginalized.

Easter

Look, I love me a ‘connect-the-dots’ of Scripture. I love the big story of Exodus to Empty Tomb. And if you love it and your kid would love it, go there! But that’s not quite what I mean by skipping Easter at Christmas.

There are times I’ve basically heard Christmas for kids gets told as Easter. Everything is about atonement—dealing with sin, looking ahead to the cross. Little gets said about presence, becoming fully human, or the other things God is doing just in coming as an infant. Phrases like “Jesus came to die for us” show up, skipping right over “Jesus came to be with us,” which is what we’re celebrating in this season. Let Christmas be Christmas, do Easter at Easter.

God Centered Storytelling is when we make sure God is the main character of the story, letting our humans be human.

As usual, there are lots of God’s attributes we can lean into in this story. Also as usual, I recommend you pick just ONE to point out and then turn it over to your kid to see what else they noticed.

Attributes of God you might highlight:

• God is with us

• Jesus is a gift to the world

• God is a savior

• God keeps Their promises

• God became a person like us (I once had a kid say “God is baby-ish”, like, God became a baby person, not a grown-up person. What a great observation!)

• God chooses unlikely people

• God comes near to us

• Jesus is king

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I’m wrapping up here, but I know there’s so much we could have talked about. Thank you for reading and thank goodness for the comments to take over from here.

What else “Christmas and kids” can we talk about? Are you wondering about? Did your kid ask about? Let’s keep talking.

Now, if you’re feeling like I like all this, but like, is there something I can just use to do it? the answer is yes.

It’s the Zippee Family Toolkit.

It has story scripts ready that you just read out loud. It has wonder questions. It has a menu of ideas for engaging with and responding to the story. It’s intentionally simple, pick-what-you-like, and written with both care for the biblical story and a desire to be kid-accessible. 

There’s one for younger kids and another for older kids.

But my very favorite has to be the NEW Christmas Story Scavenger Hunt. This is my family’s tradition, now in a sharable resource. The characters of the story tell the story while 8 clues and puzzles lead kids through your home to a fun surprise. We do it Christmas morning and it leads to stockings, but it would be fun any time this month.

Both are 15% off with the code NEWSLETTER through Monday 12/4.

Lastly, for the story in audio form, there are past episodes of Ask Away where we tell it. We did How Weird Is It?, The Whole Sh-Bang, and a mini-story series, just like I mentioned above.

Whatever is broken, wounded or lost that is breaking your heart this Christmas, may our God remind you: it can be whole, it can be healed, it can be found.

And until it is, Immanuel, God with us, holds you.

Amen.