You’ve decided your family will no longer celebrate christmas. You understand why you’re leaving it, and you want to honor Yehovah. But now the season is approaching, and something feels…off. It feels like something is missing. Your children might be struggling. Maybe you are, too, and saying that out loud feels a little uncomfortable.
Before you make any rash decisions that would push you into something that you’re not fully ready for or push you away altogether, know that you aren’t the only one who has dealt with this. Coming out of the world can be difficult and even painful at times.
The good news is, you don’t have to push yourself to get it all perfect. None of us is doing any of this perfectly, so let that take some pressure off. But in this moment, stop and take a breath, then decide what you want to do about that feeling. Don’t rush. Take time to understand it, examine it. What, exactly, do you miss? Is it the tree? The gifts? Or is it baking with your children, gathering with people you love, and having something to look forward to when the evenings get cold and dark?
We talk with many people who feel a little lost as they leave christmas behind. For some, the hardest part is losing the cozy winter atmosphere they’ve associated with it for so long. Your struggling child may not be grieving the tree or the presents. They may be feeling a little lost and wondering whether the evenings of baking together, the warmth of a festive home, and the excitement of having something to look forward to are going away, too. Understanding that gives you something specific to work with as you help them discover what winter can look like now.
Your whole family may need that conversation. Pause and listen before you assume you already know what everyone is missing or afraid of losing. They might surprise you. And those things they miss will also dictate your approach to helping them with it. A child who misses time with grandparents needs a different response from one who is disappointed about presents. You can explain obedience while still listening compassionately to what the change means to your children.
Now, as far as decorating for the season, don’t look to me for advice. I am not that girl. Decorating has never been my particular area of expertise. If you’re looking for someone to explain how to arrange a winter centerpiece, you’re going to need another person for that assignment. But the various people we’ve talked with have given us some pretty good ideas, and many are wonderfully simple. Sharing them doesn’t require any decorating skill whatsoever – so you’re safe.
Making home feel warm
Christmas doesn’t own winter. A warm blanket, a pot of soup, cookies in the oven, and an evening reading together can belong to your family without belonging to a holiday.
That doesn’t mean every decoration or tradition can be separated from christmas by changing what you call it. Be honest about what you’re keeping and why. You don’t want to recreate the same celebration and give it a different name. We’ve talked to many people who did this and were astonished to realize that they had essentially invented a “Jewish christmas.” That’s not what you want to go for, but you also don’t need to assume that everything you enjoyed during December was inherently part of that celebration. If you’re still working through the difference, The Bible Forbids “Christianizing” Pagan Traditions takes a closer look at adopting religious customs and giving them a different name.
Start with ordinary ways to make your home welcoming. Bring out soft blankets and comfortable pillows. Use winter colors or make paper snowflakes with your children. Let them help set a pretty table for a family meal. Some families enjoy gentle lighting during the darker months. Others prefer to avoid lights or decorations that carry strong holiday associations for them. You don’t have to copy someone else’s home to build something meaningful in yours.
Here’s one thing I have done with our grandson. He grew up in Torah, so he has no interest in christmas, but I wanted to give him some cozy traditions. One of these is using certain scents in our home during that time of year. Scent is very closely tied to memory. Choose a scent that you like and use it throughout your home during the winter season. Burn candles, keep a spice pot simmering on the stove, or use beeswax melts, and soon everyone will be associating that scent with the new traditions you and your family are creating together.
Cozy can be as simple as everyone in comfortable clothes with a book and a warm drink. It can be homemade soup after an afternoon outdoors, a puzzle spread across the table, hot chocolate with peppermint, or listening to music while you work on a craft together. You don’t need an expensive shopping trip or a house that looks like a magazine photograph. The people living there need your attention more than they need another decoration.
Give your family something to anticipate
If christmas once occupied weeks of preparation and excitement, removing it can leave a very visible space in your family’s routine. Be intentional about how you spend that time.
Plan a baking afternoon. Choose cookie shapes and activities that fit the direction you’re taking. Have a family game night, make a blanket fort, read a book aloud over several evenings, or take a winter nature walk. Ask each child to suggest something they’d enjoy doing together. You may discover that a little uninterrupted time with you is what they were hoping for all along.
Spread those experiences through the season. They don’t need to culminate on December 25, and they don’t need a new holiday attached to them. A family meal can happen because you love being together. A gift can be given because you saw something someone needed or would enjoy. You can practice hospitality and generosity throughout the year.
Some of the most popular ideas we’ve heard involve giving your children opportunities to bless someone else. You could contact a nursing home, ask what items residents need and are allowed to receive, and put care bags together as a family. Let your children help choose the items and include a note of encouragement. Shopping together takes on a different purpose when everyone is thinking about the person who will open that bag.
You can adapt that idea to your own circumstances. Help your children choose food for a family in need, prepare a meal for someone who is struggling, or write encouraging notes to someone who is often alone. I love Senior Angels/Chemo Angels and have been writing letters through them for years. Get the whole family involved in coming up with ideas and bringing those ideas to life. Acts 20:35 connects giving with blessing, and children can begin to understand that through what they actually do.
Build memories around what Yehovah has given
As you leave old traditions behind, give your family opportunities to discover the joy of Sabbath and Yehovah’s appointed feasts. Learn their meaning together. Involve your children in the preparations, and explain what you’re remembering and why.
Prepare a favorite meal before Sabbath begins. Let a child choose a song or something to discuss from Scripture. Make room for unhurried conversation. For the feasts, plan age-appropriate activities that help your children understand what the observance teaches. Those experiences can become part of the family history they look back on with affection.
Keep the meaning of each observance at the center. Sukkot shouldn’t become christmas moved to another month. Hanukkah shouldn’t become a winter substitute with a different vocabulary. Building meaningful traditions requires more thought than transferring the old expectations onto another date.
Deuteronomy 6:6–7 places teaching within the ordinary movement of family life. Your children learn through conversation, repetition, and the example you set. Let them see that honoring Yehovah shapes a home where there is affection, hospitality, generosity, and joy.
Leave room to keep growing
You may not untangle every emotional association in a single season. Something you initially viewed as ordinary winter decor may later seem too closely connected to the celebration you’ve left. Be willing to examine it again. A decision made this year doesn’t have to become a tradition you defend forever.
However, that flexibility isn’t permission to postpone obedience to something you already understand. It means remaining teachable as you examine the habits and associations you haven’t fully considered. Pray, study Scripture, and respond honestly. Familiarity and a comfortable feeling aren’t sufficient reasons to hang onto something. Obedience Is Not Selective addresses that distinction between sincerely pursuing obedience and insisting on doing it on your own terms.
You also need to be honest about what keeps pulling you back. Missing something familiar gives you a feeling to work through; using that feeling to justify what you already know you need to leave behind takes you somewhere else. I’ve written more about those attachments in Compromise: Your Anchor to Babylon.
When an adjustment is needed, have a family meeting. Explain it to your children without making them feel foolish for having enjoyed the earlier activity. You’re learning to order your family’s life differently. Let them see humility and consistency in that process.
And give new memories time to develop. The traditions you’re leaving may have years of repetition behind them. One game night probably won’t carry the same emotional history. But shared experiences accumulate. The soup you make every winter, the people you welcome, the preparations your children help with, and the evenings you spend together begin to mean something because you keep showing up for them.
Your family can build a life with just as much anticipation, warmth, and joy as the one you’re leaving. Begin with what honors Yehovah, pay attention to the people He has placed in your home, and make room to enjoy your life together.
