¶ Christmas Traditions and Childhood Memories
Hey , welcome to Doing Life with Ken and Tabitha . We are so pumped that you're tuning into this podcast . It has been designed for people just like you . We wanna do life with you , share our wins , our defeats , our ups and our downs , in hopes that you'll grow closer to God and to the people that you love in your life . Sit back and enjoy today's podcast .
Rockin' around the Christmas tree , I'll be your backup dancer . Have a happy holiday , do ? I'll be your backup dancer . Hello , what's up everybody ? Hello everyone .
Merry , merry Christmas , merry Christmas .
It is that time of year and you are in for a treat today , because today is our last episode of season two during Life with Ken and Tabitha , and we decided to just do something special . Today we're just going to do Christmas with Ken and Tabitha . We thought about doing Christmas with the Claytas , but people don't know .
That's our last name , so we're going to do Christmas with Ken and Tabitha . Sweetheart , it's good to see you look beautiful in red .
Thank you , I'm excited . What are you excited about ?
Because it's christmas time . It is christmas time and this is your favorite time of the year . It is why is that it's just fun .
I love everything about it . Okay , I love the decorations , I love the carols . Okay , I love the tradition , the feel good , just the family time , the giving the food , all of it . Love it , love it , good , good , good , love it .
So I don't know if people know , but in the Claytor house Christmas is a turned up season . First and foremost , Jesus , the Lord and Savior of our life . We are celebrating his goodness and there's joy in the atmosphere and we just believe that , hey , let's have a good time as well .
This is a time for family and there's just so many good things in the season , and so I kind of we want to be able to just share that spirit with everybody today . I would love to just hear how was Christmas for you growing up ?
Christmas was the best growing up , okay .
Now I see you're being very , very what is that word ? All over the place today . You're excited . All right , okay .
So Christmas was the best growing up . One thing that you tell me a lot of is just like tab . You have so many bad stories Like I always have this like ghetto hood reference to bring up anytime we're doing anything . Well , you know , I tell the kids . You know what I used to do when I was your age , you know what we used to do back in the hood .
But Christmas is another story .
Okay , tell us about it .
Because we did Christmas right . One thing my mom did is she did Christmas right . Okay , well , it was . You know , if you guys have you know , if you know me , I had a lot of craziness in my childhood growing up Domestic violence , alcoholism , sexual abuse , physical abuse , verbal abuse , all of this stuff and so I really felt unsafe in my childhood .
But on Christmas Christmas was that one day . Now I will say this I didn't know , it was about Jesus back then , which is why I'm super turned up now Come to find out . My favorite day ever has Jesus is all about Jesus , right . So , anyway , growing up , um , yeah , we just did . We did Christmas . It was the one day . There was no fighting that day .
Any other day of the year , it could have been Easter , it could have been Thanksgiving , it could , uh , the 4th of July , no doubt there's a fight going on . The cops are coming to my house on that day . You know what I mean . They were all unsafe , but on Christmas , it was just the one day . I don't know we .
I'm from Pennsylvania , you're from West Virginia , but we usually had snow around . You know everybody's indoors , you can't go outside and go crazy . I guess is indoors , you can't go outside and go crazy , I guess . But Christmas was that one day that there was peace in our house , we had good food , we watched Christmas cartoons and we opened presents .
It was the best .
Amen . One thing that was different for us growing up is that we didn't wrap gifts . We didn't wrap gifts , so when we came upstairs as kids , they would buy us a bunch of gifts . That is crazy to me . And they would just lay it all over the furniture and stuff , and so we didn't have wrapping paper to tear .
That's crazy .
That's crazy , but we were just as excited as you would be if you had to wrap . And they saved a lot of time wrapping all those gifts , so I always thought it was cool .
So when we got married , I was like hey , we're just gonna put gifts out here and you want it just to take , and this is like a two-day journey every year you're exhausted from wrapping gifts , why are we wrapping this stuff ?
I just think if there was one place in your life that I could say that you have been truly deprived is that you did not have your Christmas presents wrapped do you tell me ?
I don't feel like that at all .
That is like it's the mystery of the wrapping that you look and you're like , oh my gosh , what's in all of these boxes ?
And you get to tear it open Perspective is an interesting thing and that happens to be your perspective . But just because it's your reality doesn't make it real For me . I was just as happy , just as excited , and when you started doing whole gift wrap thing , I'm thinking this is making a mess .
Like we really could still have that level of excitement without so much wrapping paper Rappers . What's Christmas morning without rappers flying everywhere ? It's just a great , chaotic , wonderful celebration .
Okay , all right , all right , but you know , for me also , it was just a family time . It was a time where we ate good food and , um , you know , there's just so many great . What's your favorite Christmas tradition ?
Favorite Christmas tradition ? I don't know . I would say it's probably Christmas morning . You know what I mean Christmas morning , which is , you know , as a child we would wake up . Usually I was the first one up , but then I would wait for my mom to get up , I'd wait for everybody else .
So it's just like trying to go to sleep the night before was terrible , it was torture as a kid . You know . Our kids tell us that now they're teenagers , now they're so excited the night before Christmas , like they can't take it .
Okay , well , I was kind of asked for your favorite tradition , but you're just talking about how . Well , tell me . Okay , so how ? How paint us a picture . How was things growing up for you on Christmas ?
I don't know . I think I talked about it a little bit . I think you know , growing up for me , we believed in Santa Claus . We did not know anything about Jesus , and so it was all about Santa Claus coming that night and you being good . I'm a person who follows rules and so I was being good .
I was not taking the risks that I didn't get any gifts or anything like that . And so actually one night I remember being in my grandma's house and I stayed with my grandmother and I would fall asleep on the couch every night and she would carry me up and I slept in the bed with her and she would carry me up while I was sleeping , put me in my bed .
But I remember laying on the couch and hearing Rudolph and the reindeers on the roof Okay , the reindeer . It was my imagination , obviously , I , santa was on the roof and I wasn't asleep yet . It was just crazy . I didn't know what to do . I just thought I wasn't going to get any gifts . It was just terrible .
But that's the kind of , you know , my imagination is very strong . So that was my childhood , just like it was all about Santa Claus .
¶ Christmas Memories and Favorite Gifts
All of that I will say , though , um , you know what , after I , you know , grew up , got saved and found out that Jesus was the reason for the season , you know what really made me ?
Um , when we met , I wasn't saved like maybe the first year , first year we were together and , um , I went to your house , like around Christmas time , and met your parents and things like that , and your mom had a Christmas tree up in the living room and on the Christmas tree it had two ribbons that said happy birthday Jesus .
And it dawned on me for the first time I was what ? 22 years old probably it dawned on me that , like , oh my gosh , christmas is celebrating the birth of Jesus . Like , I just didn't know , it did not occur to me at all , but now that I know that Jesus is the reason for the season , it is just so special to me .
What is your favorite food for Christmas ?
Favorite food probably Christmas sugar cookies . I like Christmas sugar cookies . Okay , I like Christmas sugar cookies . Yep , what about you ?
Christmas food . I like breakfast on Christmas morning that you fix .
That's our tradition .
Which we have . Our tradition is what it's pancakes . Is that part of it ? No , it's sausage gravy we have . Our tradition is what it's pancakes . Is that part of it ? No , it's sausage gravy and biscuits .
There it is , yes , but we also eat pancakes , sometimes Homemade sausage , gravy and biscuits Homemade sausage , gravy and biscuits .
And so now on the clater side , on my side , there's a tradition for oysters . I have dropped that tradition . They like to fry oysters and I have dropped that tradition . They like to fry oysters and this was a thing and I remember my dad would always do it .
He didn't like oysters , but just because of the tradition we would always eat like a little piece of oyster . Just to say that we did it and somehow that has gotten away from us and we started a new tradition and it's much more delicious . Oh yes , it is sausage , biscuits and gravy . Now , our daughter coming home from college .
This is what she's going to want .
This is her thing .
This is the thing that's probably going to be . But if I was to look back , like when I was a kid , I don't , I don't recall like having a favorite food , necessarily . You know , I recall having favorite presents . What was your favorite present ?
I have many .
There's tons of expression . This is just funny to me . So good , so good .
So , like I said , I have several favorite gifts . Okay , my first best gift ever is a Barbie dream house . Okay , can you believe that I had a Barbie dream house ?
Why did you ? Why did you say ?
Okay , so Barbie dream house was cause ? Cause did you say okay , so barbie dream house was because ? Because , you know , like we didn't have a lot of money growing up , I lived in the projects you know . So we , you know my mom did the best she could do to do certain , you know , to get us gifts , and so she would put our names on christmas trees .
We would get donations from , you know , different charities and things like that and she would start , like in august , collecting christmas presents and hiding them in the closet , like my mom loved Christmas , like that , and so um one year I didn't even think that it was possible for me to get , but I kind of like it was still when I was really young and
believed in Santa Claus I asked for a Barbie dream house and I got a Barbie . I mean , it was like a real , it was like as big as this table .
I'm talking to this mic , okay table talking to this mic .
Okay , it was like as big as this table , babe , and um , so , anyway , the barbie dream house was number one . Peaches and cream , barbie . She was amazing . Um , there was this , uh , cabbage patch kids .
Oh , okay , so you're dating yourself for real listen the cabbage patch kid let me tell you .
The first year the cabbage patch kids came out now this is the first time we started like selling stuff off the shelves . It was was a phenomenon . Parents were , they were on the news for fighting over Cabbage Patch Kids , all of that stuff . I wanted a Cabbage Patch Kid . As a kid I was always a little insecure because I didn't know .
I felt bad for asking for something that was expensive and stuff because I didn't want to put pressure on my mom to get it for me , you know , because I didn't want to put pressure on my mom to get it for me , you know . And so I asked for a Cabbage Patch Kid and what I got was this you know , a knockoff Cabbage Patch Kid .
And the thing about the real Cabbage Patch Kids is on the butt . They had a signature on their butt . They had a real butt , a real belly button , and my Cabbage Patch Kid didn't have a signature and I knew that she wasn't real .
I think we can hear that yes Paper . Would you please comment for today's drama , the amount of expressions and drama when we start talking about Christmas ?
I felt so badly . I didn't dare mention it to my mom or my grandma , or anything like that , because they , you know , they gave me the best that they could . Well , if they had the money , it was sold off the shelves . You can't get it , you know what I mean . So , anyway , but the next year I got a real signature on the butt .
Come on , cabbage patch doll . Her name was iris , she had green eyes and red hair . She was from ireland and my grandpa is irish , and so she was , you know , part of the family all right , um , so that was your favorite gifts .
Yes , was there any gift that you ever got ? Maybe it was the cabbage patch .
Uh , knock off that you was just disappointed about it was I told you , that was I told you in advance .
Okay , yeah um , my favorite gift , and I can't even say my favorite , the gifts that I remember , I remember a few . I remember a , a play robot . It was a robot , that just a little bit , and I found it accidentally because I was in my parents closet and um , that sent a message to me even as a young person don't look for your .
I never , from that day forward , look for my gifts . It took all the fun out of it . I had a GI Joe tent .
GI Joe yeah a GI Joe .
For those who don't know , I can't even explain it , just Google it . I had a tent and it was in my room so I could like sleep in the tent and I could come out and fake war in the tent . Okay , I remember that I had a remote control car . That was really fast and tons of fun , and so I remember that , and so those are probably my top three .
But I don't remember having something that I was ever upset about .
Yeah .
I just didn't feel like like my natural wiring is more like gratitude and thank you . I never felt like , oh , they didn't get me this or they didn't get me that now my sister . Now my sister . She had a babysitter .
I know what's coming next , candace , I already know my sister had a babysitter that took care of her and she would buy her everything I'm talking about everything and I was never a hater . I've always been a congratulator but she would buy everything . My I'm talking about everything and I was never a hater .
I've always been a congratulator , but she would buy everything . My sister before we had a color TV in the house . My sister had a color TV with a remote and it was like I had this little black and white TV that had 13 challenges on it . It had little rabbit ears for antennas trying to pick up a couple channels .
This woman had full-blown cable with with a remote control , and she was like like five years old it really was . Her babysitter would take such good care of her and even when her babysitter bought her all this stuff I'm talking about for years this went on .
I was never a hater because they would always buy me a little something too I was gonna say did they not buy ? you . They bought me a little something and I would be happy for what they bought me . I knew that their relationship with her was better than their relationship with me . They weren't my babysitter . I was happy that I was getting the overflow .
I was getting the . You know I get the pity gift the gift . So the little boy don't feel bad because the other girl got so many gifts and I'm here for that .
You know what I'm saying .
It's okay , because something's better than nothing . Right ? I'm talking as as a young kid . I was never like a hater , I was never disappointed . I just felt like .
Okay , wow , that's so good . It's probably because you were so much older than her . If you were her age , it would have been a throw down In the Claytor house , you think ? So You'd have been crying .
Yeah , I'm seven years older .
Yeah you're seven years older , so you knew the difference .
I wasn't mature . I don't know what would happen . It would have been done . Yeah , I don't know there would have been crying .
There would have been real tears . Don't keep throwing my kids out there like that . Hey , that's just you know , that's what happens .
But yeah , no , I never had a gift that I was like . I never even really remember wanting something that they were unable to get me .
I just I don't know if I knew what was realistic and what what was realistic , or that they did just such a good job trying to get me something , but I just thought that was awesome you know , and so , yeah , Was there anything that was like what's your favorite Christmas ? Is there one that you remember specifically growing up ?
Um , I don't , I don't , I don't have a lot of . You know other , you know ones that I remember , like they were all kind of like in that same vein . Um , I think I I always remembered family coming together . I probably remember my grandmother during christmas , as one of my favorite memories is , you know , she died when I was 12 years old .
So remembering , you know , christmas is like that , when she was around , is great . I remember one thing that I used to love to do on Christmas , and that is so we lived in the projects which had these units of housing .
So there was maybe like eight houses in one unit and they looked like little townhouses and on the end of the unit our unit was Mrs Nixon . She was this , I believe she was widowed and she just had this dog named Pudgy . Now , there was three different Pudgies , but every time one Pudgy would die and she'd get another Pudgy and name them Pudgy .
It's just these little dogs and you weren't even allowed to have pets in the projects , but she just always had Pudgy . But she had no family come to visit her , anything , and so we were her family and every Christmas we would wake up . I remember the last Christmas being home , actually , because it was a white Christmas , snow everywhere .
My mom would make food and I would pile up a big plate of food . Now we did a Thanksgiving dinner . We just repeated that on Christmas . Everything you had on Thanksgiving , we had on Christmas .
You mean like you reheated it up , like you saved some of it , or you just recooked it . We did it .
The same food we have on Thanksgiving we had on Christmas .
Okay , so like turkey ham stuffing . So y'all went hard .
We went so hard , Okay , and so we would get a big plate or two and bring it over .
And my favorite thing to do and we had Chris we always brought Mrs Nixon a Christmas present and we would knock on her door and I would always be the one to take it over and give it to her and she would wait every Christmas and her eyes big and you know she would give some food to Pudgy too , but that was one of my favorite things to do was to take
care of Mrs Nixon on Christmas .
Yeah , I remember I used to go to a childhood church and we would go caroling and that was always cool . So there'd be about 10 to 15 kids . We would get into the van and we would just stop by what we would call them was the sick and shut in . These are the people that might not can get to the church because they're older and their health is not good .
We would go to them and we would just knock on the door . I would love to do that Outside and we just sing Christmas curls , and that was a cool moment , you know , I wish I could organize that . You know still to this day , like yo , let's go do Christmas curling , and so that just brought joy to people . That was really cool , you know .
But let's talk about now though , ok . So how is Christmas now in the Claytor household ? What are you looking forward to this year ? What do you have ?
planned . Okay , so we're in a new house , we just moved this year and so I get to decorate this new house . So I love to decorate , you know , and do all of that stuff .
So I'm like super excited to do that . If you guys don't follow us on social media Instagram or something you should check it out , because you decorate for the fall , you decorate for Thanksgiving , decorate for Christmas . Then we decorate you like to change stuff around ? Yes , I do . It's refreshing , it's good , it does .
You know , just keep up , let's be festive and enjoy life . So I mean , all of the decorations are fun .
¶ Creating Family Christmas Traditions
I think there's a few traditions that we do for christmas that I love . Uh , you said the one , um , that is uh christmas mornings , uh , where we we have sausage , uh biscuits and gravy and it's really good .
So I usually wake up , I'm the first one up , I'll wake up and plug in all the lights and things so that when the kids come downstairs everything's lit up in christmas time and you see , and I wrap all the presents and arrange things . So that's like the wow factor Okay . And so I do that , and then I'll go downstairs also .
Now I've pre-made all the food , so I go down , throw the sausage biscuits , I throw that all in the oven and we have hot tea and Christmas cookies while we , you know , open the Christmas presents . And then after that we eat breakfast and then we just lay around in our PJs all day playing with toys , having fun , taking naps .
We have a good Christmas dinner and repeat Play with toys , play games , take another nap and it's kind of like a real chill Christmas .
You know , in our house it's funny because we've never gone away for Christmas . You know how some people go to their in-laws and like we want our kids to come to us . We feel like we're where the fun starts .
But you know we'll go and see my parents for Thanksgiving and my sister for Thanksgiving and we'll do some traveling other times , but for Christmas we've just said we're going to be home . Yeah , and I think we enjoy that .
Maybe it's just the pace of life that we live mostly through the year , or we have a Christmas Eve service as well in our church , and then a New Year's Eve service .
So that's another reason .
But it's good to be home and like doing nothing but just being with family .
But you know , we do do things like we typically will have a Christmas party and then we've done things throughout the year for Christmas parties . I mean we have gone over the top the year for Christmas parties . I mean we have gone over the top . We had a thing one year we had . My favorite Christmas party was this Christmas party .
So I did a theme in the house , right , I made a story , I wrote a story that was a mystery to be solved , and so when the guests came in , I let them go on this mystery to where . Each bedroom was another clue to the mystery . So I made a storybook page and it was like really big and I hung it on the wall .
So when they opened the door they would have to read the clues . But the room was set up in a way to lead you to the next one . And so , for example , for the next one was the mystery of the stolen cookies , and so somebody stole all of the Christmas cookies .
There were no Christmas cookies , and so there were about five different rooms that we went into and the kids got together and they worked their rooms up and everything to where it led to , like the first door said , oh no , you know this isn't the room , but it was like Kenny's room and Spider-Man was in there and he was the one saying go try , you know
charity's room . And in charity's room there was a bunch of Barbies there and they were like no , we didn't do it . So anyway , it led them upstairs into the very back room and the thief was Olaf the Snowman .
He was sitting there with all of these Christmas cookies and you got to take a Christmas cookie and go downstairs and enjoy the rest of the party no-transcript , your expressive side till now .
So when we say that we're different , like we're best friends but we're different and many times we marry our opposite , and I think that we're able to portray like I don't know if they can tell I've kind of set back in this episode because that's how holidays are and you're just went hard because that's how you do and what I've done is that I embrace that , I
love that about you . I don't want to change you and hopefully you don't want to change me , because you know what do I do around holidays you chill like you're .
You're super cool all the time .
I'm always like woohoo let's do this , and you're always like chill , right yeah ?
and you know , you look good , you sound good , you're always really cool .
I'm just chilling because no , for real , why I chill is because I work so hard . And then the holidays is just one time that I can just chill out , because when January hits , as a pastor it's 21 days of prayer and fasting . It's travel here , travel there , go here and go there .
So for me to make the holidays super busy , but that's why I'm thankful for you and sometimes I'll be like Wendy you chill , but I think you love to do this .
So this brings you energy and it gives you life .
And I'm appreciative of it .
Thank you . It's fun , though . It's just like making those family memories and all of that good stuff
¶ Santa Claus and Christmas Traditions
.
Any other memory that you want to share , a thing that we do currently that you want to share with everybody ? What about Christmas Eve ? Anything special we do on Christmas Eve .
You know , we usually do a candlelight service on Christmas Eve which is really fun . Yeah , with the church , we put on Christmas PJs .
We have matching PJs as a family . That's always cool .
We'll watch Christmas movies all of the classics and things like that .
What's your favorite Christmas movie ?
My favorite Christmas movie .
It's hard to tell a favorite one , let me pick it Okay . Okay , I got what I think it is .
Go ahead and say it and I'll be honest , I might not be sure either , but probably a christmas story , really yeah , I was thinking elf elf would be my second girl , you don't watch christmas story depending on the mood it could swap back and forth you don't watch christmas story .
You like the nostalgia ?
I like this nostalgia sometimes you don't .
You're not excited about it .
You'd be excited to watch elf I do , I , I can quote lines from elf , yeah you , could you watch that ?
maybe how many times here every christmas ?
a lot a lot I just let it play , but you know one thing that you love to do hallmark christmas movies .
Oh , yes , I do even way back . I'm talking like they start these things in October . They're like countdown to Christmas and it's like on and bopping man . I'm talking about we've watched . How many Hallmark Christmas movies do you think that we've watched ?
I don't know , over years , probably hundreds , if there's a movie , if it's a Christmas it feels like it's definitely like over 100 .
I mean , we've watched some hallmark christmas movies but it's cool because we kind of elongate the holiday a little bit , you know oh , but there's a new channel out too .
It's the great american . What is that ? Well , the hall . We don't get that channel .
I don't know how to get it movie started to introduce things that is just like secular and not biblical , and so stick with the formula .
Hallmark Stick with the formula .
But this other TV station now , and I think there's some actors like Candace Candace . Bure has went over to them and they seem to be producing wholesome .
Yes , really wholesome family movies and I love her and so yeah , yeah .
Yeah , she's good people without question , and so yeah , yeah , yeah , she's good people without question , and so man , okay , so man .
Christmas , Christmas , Christmas .
Santa Claus , uh-huh , what ? Okay , now let me give a disclaimer . I want to talk about Santa Claus and my question for you is going to be what did we teach our kid about Santa Claus ?
But my disclaimer is this is , if you're in the car and you're with kids and you don't want them to hear what we about to say , turn us down , push pause , come back later . Okay , let me give you five seconds . Five four three . I know how to say four Four two .
It surprised me that you said that I was like wow .
One . Okay . What did we teach our kids about Santa Claus ?
We kind of were nonchalant about Santa Claus . We weren't super radical in being like Santa's , you know , not real Like we didn't tell them that , but we more were like , oh , this is the reason for Christmas , jesus is the reason for the season , you know . Oh , there's Santa Claus , it's kind of like an afterthought .
But then also we educated them on Saint Nicholas . Well , who is Saint Nicholas ? Santa Claus is really Saint Nicholas . Saint Nicholas was a man from you know , a long time ago . He loved Jesus and he did really good things for people and people wanted to say thank you , thank you to St Nicholas . But he said , no , don't thank me .
Thank God , he's the one that's really allowing me to do this for you . So we tell them that story about St Nicholas and he became just this thing that our kids weren't like Christmas is about Santa . They weren't Santa crazy , they were just like , oh okay , christmas was about Jesus and us giving .
That's why we get gifts on Christmas , because , number one , we celebrate the birth of Jesus and number two , we give like Jesus gave . And that was pretty much it . And I actually asked Hannah not too long ago I was just like Hannah so what did you think about Christmas and Santa Claus and did you ever feel like deprived or left out or anything like that ?
And she was just like no , I never once , ever thought . And she was like ever , ever thought like anything about Santa Claus . It was just something and it wasn't a big deal you're funny .
you're so funny the way you answer these questions , because that's not a clear answer . But it's okay , that's why you got me here .
There you go , clarify it .
We never told our kids to believe in Santa Claus . That's the clear answer . We never told our kids to believe in Santa Claus . We never told them that Santa Claus brought gifts for them .
Oh yeah , we never told them that Santa Claus brought gifts for them . Oh yeah , we never did that .
Oh yeah , my mind doesn't even yeah , we didn't do that Because we made up our mind from the beginning that we would not lie to our children . Because if we lie to them about this , they might think that we've lied to them about Jesus or lied to them about things that really matter . So what we did is for us .
We made Santa Claus just like Mickey Mouse , just like the Hulk and just like any imaginatory figure .
And so when our kids saw Santa Claus , they still wanted to take pictures with Santa , but they knew , they always knew we are the ones that provided the gifts that they receive and we're able to provide for them because of the grace of God and the goodness of God . So , we never lied to our kids , we never made this whole thing up , and I'm not .
People can do whatever they want to do . But , I think it's important if people are like a straight up question what did you ?
tell your kids about Santa Claus .
We did not lie to our kids and so , but they didn't . So your point about Hannah they didn't even know it was there because we didn't make up that story . It wasn't like they were the kids going to school like Santa Claus ain't real Right . No , no so your story is true .
There was nonchalant about it because they wouldn't lie to and they just looked at him as a fictional character that we can have fun with .
Yeah , and on Christmas Eve we weren't like Santa Claus is coming tonight . You better be good , we , you better be good . We didn't do any of that .
Um , so now I grew up that way and I had a good old time . I did too , yeah , and I put out milk for Santa . I put out some cookies and didn't get up in the morning and the cookies be half eaten and the milk be gone . I'd be like , oh shoot , he came , you know , and I don't know how you realized that there was no Santa Claus for me .
I think I was about 12 years old and I went to my mom and I said , mom , is Santa Claus real ? And she said something like well , if he's real in your heart , you was like oh man , and I was like huh well , I'm not sure about that . It just left a little bit of confusion .
That's the kind of thing that we had an in-depth conversation about . What are we going to tell our kids ? Because I want them to always know that I'm going to mommy's going to tell you the truth .
Now , I'll tell you the truth on your level , but I want to tell you the truth and so , especially coming from a background like I did I didn't know anything about God , jesus , anything I didn't know . We wanted our children to say okay , we did not . What we did not want them to come to was like okay , well , santa's this fictional character .
I thought that he was magical and flew in the air on a sleigh and did all these wonderful things , but come to find out he's not real . I didn't want that same attitude toward Jesus . Oh , he's this fictional fixer person who does miracle signs and wonders and he's supposed to come back again one day and we're going to go to heaven .
All of that seems a bunch of mumbo jumbo when you've already lied to me about Santa who does all of these other things . I just didn't want that to be so .
And that's been our conviction .
And that's just us and other people want to do differently .
That's between them and how they raise their kids and the Lord . But our kids have turned out pretty good , hey , and they've had tons of fun . Listen , our kids get turned up for Christmas . They get turned up for Christmas .
And I think .
One other thing we do I don't know if we've done this every year is we always taught our kids to try to pick another family to bless . Yeah , we've been sporadic .
We've been sporadic with that , but now that our kids are teenagers , to pick another family to bless ?
Yeah , we've been sporadic , we've been sporadic with that , but now that our kids are teenagers , please remind me . You know that this is something that we need to do , because I don't want them to be entitled kind of kids . I want them to always give back , always help other people .
And so I guess that brings me to the main thing of Christmas , which is Jesus . You got saved 20 some years ago . If I said , who is Jesus to you From the person of Christ , how would you articulate that ? What would you say ? Who is Jesus to you ?
Jesus is , you know , first thought my everything . You know he's uh , my joy , my peace , um , my savior , Um , I trust him , uh , I just , you know he's here with me . You know , um , I don't know he's a best friend . You know , I don't know he's a best friend , he's everything .
¶ The Meaning of Christmas Celebrated
Yeah , yeah , for me , I mean Jesus , I mean the classical thing is that we were all sinners and separated from God .
Because of the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man , because of what we call original sin of God and the sinfulness of man , because of what we call original sin of Adam and Eve , the justice of God demanded the judgment of God , and the judgment of God comes upon all humanity , adam and Eve , and then those who would follow , which would include us .
But Jesus immediately had a plan to redeem mankind , to buy us back from paying for our own punishment in our own sin . He puts on the likeness of flesh , he dies a sinner's death , he's beaten , he's chastised , the chastisement of our pieces upon him by his stripes were healed , and he took all of that so that we wouldn't have to take it .
He was crucified and then buried , and death couldn't hold him down , for he was held there in the center of the earth , without it being just because he never sinned . And so he rose with power , with all power in his hands .
He rose from the grave with power in his hands , defeated death , hell and the grave , and now has given us back authority again , and so the birth of Jesus to me . I know that people get into these debates about should we celebrate the birth of Jesus to me . I know that people get into these debates about should we celebrate the birth of somebody .
Listen , I celebrate your birthday because I'm happy that you were born . You celebrate my birthday . I want to celebrate people . I want to celebrate their life . There's nothing wrong with celebrating the birth of Jesus and it wasn't on December 25th , I understand that wasn't on this . This the day that we've decided to celebrate his birth and celebrate we should .
I mean , we celebrate the foot , the Superbowl , we celebrate the NHL , you know every NBA game . We celebrate all this stuff . We're going to celebrate the fact that the lamb of God was born to take away the sins of the world , in a way , in a manger , many , many , many , many years ago .
Um , he was born so that he could die and he was born with me and you , and to me he is my savior , my Lord , my door , my shepherd , my soon coming King . He's Emmanuel , god with us . He's God in the flesh and all power .
He's the fullness and the expression of the Godhead bodily and he's our savior , you know , and so to me that is the reason for the season and I don't mind . You know people get upset at the consumerism and stuff . That's what the world's going to do . I do not mind the songs in the store , I do not mind the things that are being sold . I do not .
I honestly embrace all of it . But I keep Jesus as the main thing , like in my heart .
Yeah .
And so for me , it reminds me of Isaiah 9 and 6 . It says for unto us a child is born , unto us a son is given , and the government will be upon his shoulders and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor . Mighty God , everlasting Father , prince of Peace , of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end .
To me , that is a prophetic word from Isaiah about the Christ child who would be born , and we call him Wonderful . Counsel counselor , mighty God , and to me that's just a small portion of who he is . Words cannot describe everything that the King of glory is , but this season is about him .
This season , this life that we live , the life that I now live , I live by the faith in the son of God , who was born so that he could die for me and everything that we're able to do , the people that we're able to reach , the house that we live in , the kids that we have , is all to the glory of .
God .
And so this is what we celebrate , yeah .
It's the most wonderful time of the year .
Yeah , it's the most wonderful time of the year . What's the next verse ?
What's your favorite um christmas song ? Oh , I don't know . Uh , probably , maybe no there's a song , what's it called ? I like it's the most wonderful time of the year , but it's um . Is it ? Is it the most wonderful time of the year ? It's a song . It starts that ben crosby sings it .
It's beginning to look a lot like christmas what about rocking around the christmas tree ?
have a happy holiday I like that . There's one that chris brown does interject chris brown and all this um , but it's it's a um , shake a hand , shake a hand . You know what I'm talking about this christmas .
This christmas that's a remake , though I know it is a remake , but I like his version of it , oh yeah yeah , yeah , I'm gonna get to know you better this christmas yeah , that's nice . That's a good one . Um , I like to listen to nat king cole . He's his voice is wonderful .
Benrosby was my mom's favorite growing up , so we would always listen , like the kids know Bing Crosby and all of his music . We listen to Michael Bublé now . His Christmas CD is really good . His Christmas album is really good what's your favorite Christian one ooh , I don't really back in the day . Fred Hammond , fred Hammond has a Christmas album .
Y'all gotta check that out . Fred Hammond Christmas album Fred Hammond . Fred Hammond has a Christmas album .
Y'all gotta check that out .
Fred Hammond , christmas is old so they might not bear witness with it , but it's nostalgic in our house .
I don't really know any new .
Israel had one . I mean , there's a lot of people that put out some stuff it just didn't catch , I mean , but the stuff that blew up was the Mariah Carey stuff .
Oh , of course , mariah Carey , I don .
Oh , of course , Mariah Carey , I don't know . Let us know what your favorite Christmas song is , and maybe we'll check it out as well .
I know .
Yeah , yeah , I feel like we're done for the day . Merry Christmas , feliz Navidad . I feel really good about this man . This is the end of a season . You're so cute in your hat too . I feel like we've done really good . I feel like there should be what's that song they do at New Year's ? Old acquaintance be forgot . But we're not going to do that .
But in two or three weeks we'll be back . That's right . We are taking a short break and we're going to end this season on today . We will be back the first Thursday , all right , first Thursday in January I think it's January the 2nd and we're going to come with fresh content , powerful content , y'all . And so why don't you enjoy your families ?
Have a very Merry Christmas , even for those of you all who maybe lost a loved one and you feel like there's sadness and discouragement and hopelessness . If you could shift your focus , there's more working for you than working against you , and I want you to know that the best days are still ahead of you .
And for those of you all who lost a loved one , and they're saved , to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord , so you might as well celebrate , because they're celebrating . I know that to be true . All right , hey , we're out of time for today . If you're new to our podcast , make sure you hit the subscribe button right away .
We want you to join our family , be a part of what God's doing here . Hit the icon button on YouTube . If you're on other devices , just hit the download button so you can be the first to get the content when it is released . Worship with us at Alive Church . To find more information about that , you can check out our show notes . Go to our website .
We're having a Christmas Eve candlelight service . Man , if you're anywhere near Tampa , orlando , gainesville , I'm getting the cities all mixed up . We're going to have campuses wherever God wants to have . Campuses , come and worship the risen king with us there . Campuses , come and worship the risen King with us there .
And then we're having our annual New Year's Eve party . Somebody I'm talking about this thing about to be crazy . It is a New Year's Eve celebration . Listen , where do you want to be when the ball drops ? Do you want to be sleep ? No , you don't want to be sleep . You want to be at a live church . Fly in , drive in Guess what guys .
We have a 3000,000 seat auditorium that we've rented out just for you , I'm going to be there . It is going down God going to be there and it ain't going down , it's going all the way up . New Year's Eve celebration to the ball drops party . We want to ring in the new year with you . Hey , merry Christmas , baby , sing us a song , christmas song .
Let's take it out of here .
Baby , I don't have a Christmas song . I do have Christmas songs , but I can't sing it .
Let the people Silent night .
No no .
Away in a manger . You sing it , the little boy Jesus laid down his sweet head Rocking around the Christmas . Christmas , I'll be your backup dancer holiday . We'll see y'all next year . Peace .