By Minno
As the calendar flips from fall to the holidays, anticipation may start to fill your home and heart—but not necessarily the good kind! While Thanksgiving and Christmas mean celebrations and big family meals, adorable school plays, and (maybe too) many sweets, they can also bring complicated relational dynamics, overstimulation, greed, and the trap of comparison. […]
By Jessica Wolstenholm
Who is Emmanuel in the Bible? We hear a lot about “Emmanuel” at Christmas, but who is Emmanuel? The word Emmanuel appears 4 times in the Bible—three times in Isaiah and once in Matthew. Emmanuel means “God with us” and is a name for Jesus. The Meaning of the Word, “Emmanuel” The word “Emmanuel” comes […]
By Jessica Wolstenholm
Can you imagine a world without Christmas? What about Christmas without carols? At one time in America, that’s exactly what happened. In the 1600s, some influential Christians didn’t like how “commercial” Christmas had become, so the colony in Massachusetts banned celebrating the holiday, and that ban lasted for over twenty years. [1] It’s hard to […]
By Editorial Team
It’s Not Too Late to Celebrate Advent . . . We’ve all been the tired Christmas mama before—the one who braved the malls (maybe stayed up way too late on Amazon), decked the halls, and planned ALL the holiday meals. Today, on this week-after-the-Sunday-of-Advent, we want to encourage the mom who feels like she’s already […]
By Editorial Team
Grab the Laugh and Grow Bible for Kids, written by VeggieTales and What’s In The Bible? creator Phil Vischer, and guide your family on a journey through God’s Word as you anticipate Christmas! If you are looking for a way to engage your kids in the conversations that matter this Christmas season, we invite you […]
By Erick Goss
Think about five words for a moment: Hope. Peace. Joy. Love. Surrender. “Well, Erick,” you might say, “Aren’t we all experts at surrender right now? It is 2020 after all.” True. We have all surrendered a lot this year. Sometimes, we welcome the opportunity for a change of pace. But most likely, you have dug […]
By Editorial Team
I have a love/hate relationship with Christmas. With all its programs and parties and consumerism, sometimes Christmas makes me want to run and hide. I’ve tried to bring a deeper sense of peace to the season using daily Advent readings, but always fall behind around Day 4. Over the past few years, I have found […]
By Melanie Rainer
What is the history of Christmas? Did you know that Christmas didn’t become an official holiday in the United States until 1870? And you may have noticed that nowhere in the Bible is a festival of Christ’s birth celebrated. It was several hundred years after Jesus’s death that the Church created a “Feast of the […]
By Editorial Team
Many families are familiar with Advent Christmas countdowns as made popular by adorable daily calendars flooding our Pinterest feeds throughout the fall. But Advent has been observed for centuries, long before treat-filled houses with numbered doors or chocolate and toy companies offered a way for kids to count the days of December in anticipation of […]