Christmas Traditions

I hope you all enjoy this Christmas blog post written by leader Dan Perotta. For more information about Amp'd Youth Ministries and Mount Airy Bible Church please visit us at www.youth.mabcmd.org or Facebook

Around mid-October, I start to get more and more excited for Christmas approaching.  I get excited for our family’s multiple traditions.  It all begins by putting the tree up on Thanksgiving weekend, coupled with nonstop Christmas music.  Our Christmas tree is a ginormous, ten foot tall, pre-lit tree.  Once our tree is up, we will spend the next week adding ornaments. We have over 400 ornaments, and much like other families, some ornaments have more meaning than others.  We have ornaments that mark our childhood, first year of marriage, our children’s births and adoptions, vacations and special occasions, and ornaments from loved ones.  My absolute favorite ornament is one that my grandmother gave to me from 1942.  It is called a Depression Ball.  During World War Two, almost all the metal the country had was going into producing materials for the war effort. So they used a little bit of tin, balled it up, and made it into Christmas balls to hang on their tree. This little tin ball is 70 years old, and without a doubt, our most precious ornament.
Then come the lights; both outside and in.  I go nuts when it comes to lighting the house.  So much so, that Mrs. P. calls me Clark Griswold, which is in reference to Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.  One year I counted the number of lights that I had put up and it was a little over 3500 lights.  Next we start decorating the inside of the house with Christmas decorations that we have collected since the beginning of our marriage. Another decorating tradition is putting a Christmas tree in our children’s bedrooms.  I love to walk by their room at night, as see the glow of their tree, as they are sleeping.  The absolute last bit of decorating is our nativity scene.  We set it up in a table, just as you enter our house.  Everything is there; Joseph and Mary, barn animals, shepherds, and an empty manger.  Of course, Christmas morning, the manger is occupied by baby Jesus!
On December 23, we always try to get over to church to celebrate and hear the good news through the Christmas program.  This year will be no exception.  Then, onto Christmas Eve.  Most of the day is spent relaxing, but when the evening comes, we like to have an Italian dinner, filled with homemade pasta.  Some years we will watch a Christmas movie as a family.  The Polar Express, Elf, and The Christmas Story are favorites.  Next we will gather near the tree and read about the birth of Jesus.  Maybe this year, I will have my children read it to us.  After we talk about God’s greatest gift to us, we all open one gift.  No secret here, we know what it will be…new pajamas!  A little dessert, then off to bed!
December 25, Christmas is finally here!  The day that I have waited for, for 364 days.  It starts by sleeping in.  And when I mean sleeping in, I mean sleeping in till 5:00 am.  My wife and I will try and spend the next few hours telling the kids to go back to sleep for a little longer.  But normally by 7:30, we are up and ready for the day.  Every year we will have one of the kids organizes everyone’s presents into their own sections.  Then we start with the youngest to the oldest, opening their presents one by one.  My wife and I never really liked having the kids just tear into all the gifts all at once.  We want them to appreciate each gift, and the thought then went into someone getting it for them.  We also try to take a picture of each present being opened.  Can’t forget to see what’s in our stockings.  Most years, it is loaded with little or practical items.  Such as batteries, packs of gum, oranges, etc.  When all the gifts are opened, my wife starts making our Christmas breakfast.  I don’t know about your home, but this may be our biggest and best breakfast of the year.  Eggs, bacon, Scrapple, hash browns, toast, fruit, and our newest addition, pancakes.  Funny story; a few years ago the only Christmas present our son was asking for, was pancakes.  So, under the tree he unwrapped a large box of Bisquick pancake mix.  The boy went nuts!  So my wife started making pancakes.  We decided to keep making them, if he was going to keep eating them.  When he was finally done eating, he had devoured 13 pancakes!  Now, pancakes are a staple to our Christmas breakfast.  After breakfast, we all clean up together, put our presents away, and get ready to go to one of the grandparents’ homes for Christmas dinner.  When we get there, we start the gift exchange then onto dinner and desserts.  The next day, we try and spend it with the other set of grandparents and have a second Christmas dinner with them.
Our Christmas celebrations don’t end there though.  My wife and I try to keep the lights on, the tree up, and decorations out as long as possible.  Even when we do take down everything, my wife and I try and keep the Christmas feeling living in our hearts.  This is easy to do if we hold tight to the fact that the excitement of Christmas is based completely around the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ!  We need to remember that He isn't Wonderful, Counselor, our Mighty God and Prince of Peace just on the day that we celebrate His birth.  He is all of those things on every day of the year!  We can celebrate like its Christmas all year long, even if we have to take down the tree.

ALIVE

Grains of Sand: Reflections from the MS Youth Conference in Ocean City MD

 

 

 

Every time I see the ocean, I get an overwhelming sense of the sublime.  It is a reminder of just how awesome God is and how small and humble I am.  When standing on the dunes, you can only see for only a few mere miles but it feels so vast.  Think about it- God created the entire ocean! 

The Psalmist describes these truths:

Psalm 139

¹ You have searched me, Lord,
    and you know me.
² You know when I sit and when I rise;
    you perceive my thoughts from afar.

…
⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast.

…
¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts,^[a] God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸ Were I to count them,
    they would outnumber the grains of sand—
    when I awake, I am still with you.

…

 

Amp’d middle schoolers recently gathered in Ocean City, MD with to participate in the ALIVE Conference with other youth groups in the region.  When we stepped onto the beach, I had this same sense of how great our God is and how much he cares about each and every one of us.  There were so many grains of sand on our beach front (and stuck in our shoes afterwards!) that it would be impossible to count.  Yet even so, God’s thoughts for us outnumber the grains of sand in the entire world!

The ALIVE Conference was an excellent reminder of these same truths. With a super hero theme, messages proclaimed that God is our superhero.  Often times we try to be our own superhero and make things for in our own lives.  We cannot do it on our own and we need Jesus in our lives to come and rescue us.  HE is the real superhero.

Proberbs 30:4-5 lists just some of his super powers:

“…Who has gone up to heaven and come down?
    Whose hands have gathered up the wind?
Who has wrapped up the waters in a cloak?
    Who has established all the ends of the earth?
What is his name, and what is the name of his son?
    Surely you know!

⁵ “Every word of God is flawless;
    he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.

 

Not only is God our shield, but as Christians He empowers us and has chosen us to serve and honor him.  My favorite part concluding the conference is when the speaker reminded the middle schoolers that no matter how you feel, what you think or what you may have done, “You are worth it, you are worth It, YOU ARE WORTH IT!”  The creator God of the vast ocean says that we are His wonderful creation whom He is thinking of at all times and we are worth it!