Christmas Season Celebrations
KAYLEA HUTSON GateHouse Plus

You can hear it in your children's voices and see it in the faces of people all around you.

Regardless of the best-laid plans, people everywhere fall victim to stress.

Stress might as well be part of the holiday season, next to turkeys, hams, presents, family reunions and holiday parties.

Dave and Claudia Arp understand the clutter which often comes with the holiday season also brings with it a dose of stress.

The pair said one year when finances were tight other aspects of the holiday season had to be emphasized.

"We had no choice but to focus on other aspects of Christmas, like the fact that it's Jesus' birthday," they wrote. "Despite our simple, low-budget celebrations, that holiday season was extravagant and rich.

"We realized the importance of building meaningful holiday traditions and rituals and focusing on the gift of joy we have in Christ."

In a way, the couple learned to be grateful for what they have rather than worried or stressed about things not as important.

So how do you have meaningful holidays, rather than stress-filled events?

The Arps suggest sitting down and looking to see what traditions make your family unique.

What are your favorite things to do at Thanksgiving and Christmas? What adds meaning to your life? What traditions are only rituals and no longer have any meaning?

Families should look at their holiday activities and try to answer the following:

• Where did this specific tradition come from - Mom or Dad's childhood? Other families? A book? A magazine?

• What traditions have disappeared over the years? • What new traditions have been added? • What traditions need to be dropped?

• What traditions would you like to add?

Once you've answered these questions, decide which traditions will stay and which will be put aside for other, more meaningful things.

If you are looking for some ways to celebrate the season without adding financial stress to your family's budget, try these activities:

• Try some old-fashioned caroling - Organize a choir of family and friends and go Christmas caroling. Call ahead to alert your neighbors to the fun. At the end of the evening, celebrate with hot chocolate or hot-spiced cider and sugar cookies and read the Christmas story.

• Create a family prayer basket - Each time God answers a prayer during the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, jot it down on a card and drop it in a prayer basket

any basket or bowl will do). Keep the prayer basket on the kitchen table or somewhere your family will see it often. Encourage everyone in the family to participate, helping young children who aren't able to write yet add their own discoveries. At dinner on Christmas Day, initiate your new tradition by taking turns reading the answered prayers.

• Bake a birthday cake for Jesus - Let your children help you make a special cake ahead of time and share it with friends and family on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day:

. Make a white round cake to remind your family of Jesus' purity and his eternal reign.

. Use 20 candles to represent the 20 centuries since Christ's birth. You can use red candles as a symbol of the blood Jesus shed for us and for Christmas joy. Tell your children that the candlelight reminds us that Jesus is the Light of the World.

. Place a silver star in the center of the cake to represent the star of Bethlehem. You can make a star with silver candles or by covering cardboard with aluminum foil. Before you sing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus and blow out the candles, explain the symbolism to your children.

• Make a manger - Assemble a nativity scene at the beginning of December. Make sure its one that your children can hold and touch. Leave the manger empty and have a small container of straw nearby. For each act of kindness you notice among your children, add a piece of straw to the manger. On Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, when baby Jesus is laid in the manger, your children will appreciate that their kind deeds helped to prepare his bed.

• Start a Christmas factory - Choose a room or corner in your home where you can keep supplies for wrapping gifts and creating Christmas crafts. Supplies might include: paper, ribbon, tape, scissors, glitter, glue, buttons, stickers, a glue gun and boxes.

For money-stretching packaging suggestions, consider the following:

. Use newspaper for large packages. Children love getting the comic sections.

. Use pine cones, evergreen sprigs, or tiny tree ornaments to decorate your packages.

. Tie plain brown bags with burlap ribbon, twine or red and green yarn. Add Christmas symbols or holiday greetings with felt-tip markers or stencils.

. Make gift tags from recycled Christmas cards.

• Roll out the dough - Making your own Christmas ornaments is inexpensive and fun. They also make great gifts for grandparents!

Here's a favorite recipe:

Mix together: 2 cups of flour, 1 cup of salt and 1 cup of water. Preheat your oven to 300 degrees.

Knead together the ingredients, then roll out and cut with cookie cutters. Brush with beaten egg.

Use a toothpick to make a hole at the top of each ornament before baking. Bake for 10-15 minutes.

After baking and cooling, push red and green yarn or ribbon through the hole and make a tie for each ornament. Leave the ornaments natural or paint them with acrylic paints. Spray with varnish for a long-lasting finish.

• Make a holiday scrapbook - Designate the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas as your "scrapbook time."

Gather all your favorite snapshots from the past year. Pull them out and make a family scrapbook of your year. It's also the time to pull out scrapbooks from previous years and enjoy the memories of days gone by.

• Throw a brown-bag party - Put on your favorite Christmas CD or tape, light the tree and take a few minutes to enjoy each other and the magic of this time of year. Roll down the tops of brown lunch bags and fill each bag with goodies to munch around the tree. Include finger foods like nuts, dried fruit, popcorn, miniature muffins and cookies.

• Celebrate Christmas afternoon - On Christmas afternoon, take time to wind down as a family. After all the celebrating is over, bring out a new puzzle or board game for the family.

You might also want to pull out the sleeping bags and take a family nap around the Christmas tree.

No matter how your family celebrates, make sure your traditions really matter to you and bring your family closer together.

Most of all, center your celebrations on the gift of Jesus. When you do, you're certain to have the happiest of holidays.

- Information courtesy David and Claudia Arp, MarriageAlive.com.