The Burns Family Christmas Eve
There is no twelve-hour block of time each year that I enjoy more than Christmas Eve. It’s our time as a family, and I truly appreciate it.
We start out Christmas Eve by going to church. We don’t get dressed up – we wear blue jeans and sweaters. After church I drive the family around looking at Christmas lights, trying to find the lamest lights in the area. (They are usually on the same house each year.) We do this until our children, R.W., 24, and Barrett, 19, rebel. Then we go home, make a fire in our fireplace, roast hot dogs, and have chili dogs, potato chips, and Vernors Ginger Ale.
At the end of our meal, we have a birthday cake for Jesus. We sing “Happy Birthday” and decide who we should give a gift to in His name. This year after that party, we watched a movie (Home Alone) before bed. We have a tradition that we all sleep in the same room. So our adult-aged kids get their sleeping bags and get ready to sleep on the floor. For the next hour, I ask them questions like, “What are the five best things that happened to you this year?” and “What’s the best family vacation we’ve ever been on?” We talk about those questions usually until I fall asleep, and then we wake up the next morning and open our gifts.
There’s nothing special about any of those events – chili dogs, birthday cakes, and ridiculous questions when we’re all about to sleep in the same room – but, you know, it’s family. There’s something very important about family. Maybe that’s why the fifth commandment is about honoring your father and mother. It reminds us that the core of our society, the thread that holds the fabric together, is the family.
I want to encourage the people in our mission to make their families the first priority – to spend time with them, to love them, and to listen to them. The older R.W. gets, the more I realize he wants to have significant conversations with me. He wants to talk about his life plan. He even wants me to give him some advice. Barrett, on the other hand, we need to listen to. She’s full of ideas and full creativity, enjoying her first year at Westmont College so much.
Nurturing family relationships takes time and work, and I pray that our ministries will not get in the way of our families this year.
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