Traditions

Christmas is the time of year I just can't help reflecting on the importance of tradition...

This week we light the Candle of Hope

My Grandmother Thomas loved the Christmas Holiday and I recall, as a small child, delighting in her white flocked trees in many rooms of the home (living in Southern California... her Kentucky heart yearned for snow). She lovingly filled the beautiful trees with red cardinals and white doves... She was joyous and excited to share the birth of Christ with everyone she had the opportunity to have a conversation with (especially with her grandchildren!). I remember sitting along side her many a Christmas Season... as she wrapped her arms around me and shared the meaning of her Christmas Tree...She was a great story teller, her eyes full of sparkle and her words would always keep us wrapped in attention. She explained... that Christ came to be my savior. She would tell me the tree represented the cross... the white doves represented the purity of Christ and the red represented the blood of Christ shed for my sin. I always felt loved and special in her arms. And, I understood the reason why we celebrate with such joy, the birth of Christ!

As a mother of my own children... the tradition of the tree lives on.

Thomas hanging his new ornament
that his Grandma lovingly gives him each year!

I have a special joy in my heart at this special time of year, when I pull out my Christmas decorations and slowly unwrap each ornament I've collected over almost 20 years of marriage. I have slowly built traditions in my own home which reflect the same message of Christ... Instead of red cardinals, I choose deep burgundy balls... they represent the blood of Christ on our green tree... with white lights. Jesus is both pure and the light of our world... "in Him there is no darkness"... I tell my children.

White lights are the representation of Christ,
both Holy and "the light of the world";
Red is the blood of Christ shed for us (the reason he came);
the Tree is the representation of the Trinity,
(as it is in the shape of a triangle with three points),
The Father, Son and Spirit; and
Evergreen represents eternal life ...He came to bring us.

And so the traditions are shared and the message of Christ is told to the young, and rekindled alive in the old, as we look forward to this season and remember Christ came to fulfill the promise of a Savior...

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet:
"The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son
and they will call him Immanuel" -
which means, "God with us".
Mathew 1:22-23