Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh – Teaching our Children to Treasure Christ

Early in our parenting, I ran across an article detailing how different families handled the world’s materialistic focus of the Christmas holiday with their children. One wise parent explained to their children that Jesus got three presents from the wise men on His birthday, so they would receive three presents when they celebrated Jesus’ birthday on Christmas. This strategy immediately resonated with us and we established this three-gift tradition at Jesus’ birthday as well. In addition, at least one of the three gifts was a gift to share between them so that the focus was not on what “I” got for Christmas, but on what “we” can enjoy together because of Christmas.

Another tradition that we practice is to begin the Christmas season by celebrating the ancient season of Advent, a time of remembrance of Christ’s first coming and the joyful anticipation of His coming again. During Advent (the twenty-four days prior to Christmas), we light a candle on each Sunday and have a daily devotion time focused on the names, identity, and role of Christ in the world. (See Family Celebrations at Christmas by Ann Hibbard or other similar resources.) We also celebrate the Christmas season until January 6th, the twelfth day of Christmas commemorating the visit of the wise men to Jesus (which actually happened two years after His birth).

Another method we use to keep the focus off of the earthly treasures and on the heavenly treasure of Christ is to begin opening gifts prior to the actual day of Christmas or during the twelve days of Christmas after, depending on the ages of the children or our travel plans. We often open gifts from out-of-town relatives during these earlier or later times. Opening gifts slowly over time (and slowly on Christmas morning!) enables the focus of Christmas day not to be on the presents but on Christ, gives young children an opportunity to focus on and enjoy each gift, and keeps the after Christmas let-down from ruining the remainder of Christmas day after all of the boxes have been opened and the wrapping paper thrown away. On Christmas morning we also have a family devotion prior to opening gifts and later on Christmas day we have a birthday cake for Jesus to remember the reason we celebrate the holiday.

If we hope to keep materialism out of our Christmas, it is also something we need to train out of our lives year-round. On a daily basis, we need to be training our children (and ourselves!) to evaluate purchases on the basis of what we need versus what we want. If we set these expectations in our children, they will be all the more blessed by receiving special gifts of what they want at special occasions throughout the year.