Program: FamilyLife Today

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Monday, December 10th. Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. We're going to talk today about how important Christmas traditions are for your family and for your community. Stay with us.

And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us. I don't know that I realized this until recently, but if you stopped and asked people about their childhood memories, I think it would be interesting to find that a lot of childhood memories are built around what you remember about Christmas growing up.

We're in the season of the year when things are busy, and when there's a lot of activity, and we can sometimes think, "Well, we want to have a great Christmas season for our family," but I don't know that I've realized just how significant that is in establishing the identity of your family and how much this season means years from now as your children are grown.

Dennis: There are half a dozen holidays unique to followers of Christ that help bring a spiritual imprint upon our families and hopefully upon our children. And what we want to do here over the coming days leading up to Christmas is really help you and your family make sure you make the most of that spiritual imprint and make sure your Christmas is focused on the right person and celebrating His birth. That's all about Jesus Christ.

And we have with us a champion for Jesus. She is a radical follower of Christ, a self-proclaimed soldier in the King's army, and I just want you to know, Brenda Verner, we join you in that army and in proclaiming Christ. Welcome to FamilyLife Today.

Brenda: Well, thanks for having me here. I am so happy to be here.

Dennis: Let me just introduce you to our listeners. They need to know a little bit about you. Brenda Verner is president of Verner Communications. You run a consulting company that helps corporations and people get right alignment around how they communicate. She is an author, she is a speaker, she is also a graduate of Harvard, and I want to list the schools, Bob – listen to this – where she has spoken or lectured in the past – Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Brown, MIT, University of Chicago, Spellman, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Northwestern University, Amherst College …

Bob: I noticed they left the University of Arkansas off that …

Dennis: I was just getting ready to go there. Why have you not been to the Harvard of the Ozarks?

Brenda: I – I …

Dennis: You're speechless! That's going to be the only time, folks, in this interview when Brenda is speechless, trust me. She has written a book called "101 Ways to Have a Christian Christmas." Now, I have to ask you, Brenda, where did the passion for this book come from? You actually – well, you create some buttons, ultimately, around your passion for Christmas.

Brenda: Yes, because I'm a media analyst, and I know that words and images are very important in the Western world, I noticed, particularly in the 1970s that there was a trend toward advertisers not using the word "Christmas," because when I was growing up the word "Christmas" was always used all the time; anything associated with Christmas was good for retailers and merchants, and people did not hesitate to use the word.

But in the '70s, for sure, I noticed it. By the end of the '70s I became offended by it, and I began to talk to people about it. Well, the first thing that happened was God gave me an idea to write a book called "Happy Birthday, Jesus." I said if they want to take Christ out of Christmas let's give them Jesus and see if they can handle that.

So I wrote this book entitled "Happy Birthday, Jesus," and the book was designed to show both churches, schools, and individual families how to give a birthday party for Jesus. And I've always been a big Christmas person. If you have any idea, you could come to my house and see all those Christmas decorations.

Dennis: Okay, back to the buttons. I want to get to the button story.

Brenda: I decided after I wrote this book, this term has got to become part of our Christmas vernacular.

Dennis: You're speaking now of …

Brenda: "Happy Birthday, Jesus." So I designed this button. I'm sorry, I will send you two one of the buttons. And I made them, I went to a printer, had a button maker make them, and I made 11,000.

Dennis: Really?

Brenda: Eleven thousand buttons.

Dennis: You still got a few buttons left?

Brenda: Yes, I have a few, and there's only a few, because I gave them to kids in the neighborhood to sell. That's where I got the name "The Christian Christmas Lady." I gave them away to Sunday schools, I gave them to people on the street, and I sold them to Christian bookstores.

So after that I was – I figured I had to really own up to being the Christian Christmas Lady.

Dennis: You had to live up to the calling, huh?

Bob: Brenda, let me take you back to when you were growing up. Describe for me what Christmas was like when you were seven years old.

Brenda: Seven, let's see – my mother, who is probably – my mother died about eight years ago – when she died, she had enough decorations to do Marshall Fields' first floor.

Dennis: That's a big department store in downtown Chicago.

Brenda: I sold more animated Christmas stuff on eBay all over the place. You have no idea, and my house is still full of them. I have enough – I could do my whole neighborhood.

Dennis: So she infused Christmas?

Brenda: Right, right. My mother is the original Martha Stewart. She could paint anything, she would put down a new floor, she would put up a wall, but at Christmastime, it was serious.

Bob: So she transformed the house at Christmastime.

Brenda: Oh, yes.

Bob: Did Christmas have a spiritual center as you were growing up?

Brenda: Well, everything in our family had a spiritual center. We always talk about Jesus, and my grandmother was like that. To show you how strong – my grandmother died when I was five and a half years old. I can remember practically everything she ever said and it was always about Jesus.

Dennis: She made a great impact in your life.

Brenda: Right, and not only in my life, my grandfather and my grandmother were stalwart Christian people, which made the grandchildren have a great deal of respect for Christianity.

Dennis: You said you remember your grandmother going door-to-door asking for money for the poor.

Brenda: Right, my grandmother was in charge of charities at her church. Even though she had 11 children of her own, she would go out and raise money every week and take those children, make them go raise money for the poor.

Dennis: Not for her family but for others.

Brenda: No, for the poor. She wasn't poor.

[laughter]

She didn't consider herself poor.

Dennis: So here is your grandmother and grandfather and your mom imprinting you, as a young lady, back to Bob's question, with the sacred nature of the Christmas holiday, and, you know, you just begin to carry that forward as you move into adulthood.

Brenda: Yes, also, where I lived, at Christmastime, there was a kind of awe that fell over the community, and there were all kinds of Christmas programs in the schools. I mean, it was like a communal kind of Christian thing. People would go and – and it wasn't – see, people refer to Christ daily where I grew up. Your behavior was measured by Christ's Word. It wasn't something that was done on special occasions. Those special occasions only heightened your commitment. It made it – I think that's what made the climate so awesome during Christmastime was that people had a great deal of respect when there wasn't these holidays.

Bob: Now, was Santa Claus a part of the celebration when you were growing up?

Brenda: No. I have a picture of myself – my mother took me to see Santa Claus, and he scared me to death. And I can show you this picture where I'm looking at him like he was from Mars and still never got a grip on who he was supposed to be.

Bob: So Jesus was at the center. Santa wasn't excluded, but he wasn't …

Brenda: Right, he was – this whole Santa Claus campaign started, certainly, in the '30s and got bigger in the '40s, but from the '50s through now has been almost a propaganda tool to replace Christ.

But, you know, when I was a kid, Santa was over to the side. It was Christ in the manger that we were focused on.

Dennis: So you've had three children.

Brenda: Yes.

Dennis: You've raised them through a few Christmases along the way.

Brenda: Right, right.

Dennis: Did Santa Claus have any part in the party? Did you allow them, off to the side, to participate with him? How did you make Christ the center of your family's Christmas?

Brenda: Well, first of all, all three of my children were born in December – December 6th, 16th, and 31st. So they shared their birthday with Jesus, and we have a Happy Birthday, Jesus party. At one time I did have ornaments with Santa Claus on them, and as my commitment to Christmas grew, I actually – and I had thousands of dollars worth of these things. I took all of them and got rid of them.

And I focused on the idea that we need to celebrate every element of the Nativity story, and that's what I do.

Bob: Now, if somebody says, "That sounds a little extreme to me."

Brenda: Extreme to what? Sharing Jesus with a teddy bear?

Bob: You know, I guess you make the point, don't you? But somebody will say, again, "Can't you have the penguins off to the side as long as Jesus is in the center?"

Brenda: Do other religions share their God with cartoons?

Bob: No.

Brenda: Then why should we be asked to do that?

Bob: So you would say "time to clean house."

Brenda: Yes, it is. We've been duped. We've been had. We've been manipulated, and these are antichrist forces that have been forcing these images on our children. They demand to take our children's hearts, don't you understand?

Bob: Now, Brenda, your mom took you down and sat you on Santa's lap.

Brenda: She never did it again.

Bob: Only do it once? Well, he scared you.

Brenda: She never did it again.

Bob: All right, so if a …

Brenda: And see, and I believe it was the spirit of God that made me afraid of him. What has he got to do with Christmas, anyway?

I saw this cartoon where there was a manger with the baby Jesus in it, and then there was Santa over here standing, looking down at baby Jesus. Now, Santa exalts himself against Jesus. He tells children, "I'll give you something for free. I'm the one that brings your gifts at Christmastime. If you'll be good the way I tell you to be good, then I will give you something."

Dennis: Like Santa is the one who is watching and is omniscient and knows everything we do …

Bob: He knows when you're sleeping, knows when you're awake.

Dennis: Whether good or bad.

Brenda: That's a god isn't it? And doesn't it make the child think consumerism is something to be worshipped?

Bob: Now, you've seen illustrations of a manger with Santa kneeling before the manger. Do you think that's okay?

Brenda: The devil comes to church.

Dennis: It took you a while, though, to come to this conclusion.

Brenda: Right, it did.

Dennis: I mean, you know, I'm thinking of how we celebrated Christmas, and I want you to know, we were pretty radical about making Christ the center, and I don't honestly remember much focus about Santa Claus, although we did have special gifts that were brought on Christmas morning that were – it just was a part of the tradition I grew up in, but I don't think our children, if you went and interviewed them today, as adults, would say, "Yes, Santa Claus was the center of our Christmas."

It's interesting, though, just in hearing you talk, though, Brenda, it took you a number of years to kind of cycle this through, think about it, you're the Christmas Lady, you're the one who is passionate about this, you finally came to the conclusion, "No, Santa, nothing other than Jesus Christ, totally centered on Him."

Brenda: And it was also the recognition that there is a concerted effort afoot by organized groups to de-Christianize Christmas. Once you've recognized that, then you can see the effects of it.

Dennis: You know, today I would agree with you. But when Barbara and I were raising our children, I did not …

Brenda: You couldn't see it.

Dennis: Well, I didn't see it, you could say it that way. I did not feel it. I did not feel an organized, concerted effort like there is today to remove Jesus Christ from Christmas.

Now, undoubtedly, it was there. You can call me naïve, you can call me …

Brenda: Right, it's like boiling the lobster. You put it in cold water.

Bob: You know, I hadn't thought about this until right now, but let me show you something. This is something that we created …

Dennis: You're not talking about something Brenda has not seen here, Bob.

Bob: It's called "What God Wants for Christmas."

Dennis: No, no, don't open it yet. What do you think God wants for Christmas? What do you think would be the ultimate Christmas gift for God?

Brenda: The embracing of Christ.

Dennis: Well, you know what?

Bob: That's a pretty good answer.

Dennis: You keep that answer …

Bob: That's a pretty good answer right there.

Dennis: A pretty good answer. Bob's going to show you what this is all about.

Bob: What this is, we open this up right here, let me pull this out, and you'll see – our team came up with this – these are in Christian bookstores and I think even Wal-Mart's got them. But you see there are seven boxes in there, right?

Brenda: Mm-hm.

Bob: Little boxes that look like jewelry boxes, and what's in this first one?

Brenda: The angel, the archangel.

Bob: That's right, okay. And the second one, what's in there?

Brenda: Mary.

Bob: That's Mary. And the third? Yeah, that's Joseph, that's right. Here is number four, and that's Jesus, right there.

Dennis: Now, wait, before you show her number 5, Bob, because we're just kind of …

Bob: Oh, we've got to pop up the Nativity scene.

Dennis: We've got to blitz – we've got to show her two things.

Brenda: Oh, wow.

Dennis: We have a little nativity scene there.

Brenda: Isn't that cute?

Dennis: That's a popup Nativity scene, it will set on your deal. But then, Bob, tell her about …

Bob: We've got the booklet that's got the poem in it. Now, this is the "What God Wants for Christmas" poem, okay?

Dennis: So with box number 1 …

Bob: You'd take out the angel, and you'd put him in the Nativity scene, like that, and you get that to just stay open.

Dennis: And that's Gabriel, and it goes like this, Brenda. "In the beginning, God started a plan to bring about Christmas, and it would be grand.

Here we would launch a gift-giving tradition
I'll tell you how it started, so please pay attention."

And at that point, go on through the poem, and we pull out the angel, set it there, and the child goes through hit, but there are seven poems, Brenda.

Bob: And each one of them ends – read the last verse of each poem.

Dennis: Okay.

"What God wants for Christmas?
It's to you a surprise, in box number 7" …

Bob: Here is what God wants for Christmas right here.

Dennis: "It is disguised. But no peeking, be patient,
For this you must wait
It's what you offer Him, and it's really great."

And I want to predict that as the Christmas Lady of all time …

Bob: She's going to like box number 7.

Dennis: You're going to like box number 7. You know, and don't open box number 7.

Bob: We won't. We've got Mary and Joseph and then box number 5, what's that? Box number 5 is a shepherd, right?

Dennis: These are quality little people here.

Bob: Box number 6 is the wise man. Now, read poem number 7 for Brenda here, okay?

Dennis: "What God wants for Christmas, now here's the surprise
In box number 7 where it's been disguised
Peek in the box, for so long you have waited
What God wants is you, the one He created."

Brenda: Ahhhh.

Bob: Now, what's in box number 7.

Brenda: A mirror image of yourself.

Bob: It's a mirror. So when a child opens this up, looking for what you pull out …

Brenda: It is you.

Bob: Yes, that's what God wants for Christmas.

Brenda: Oh, I would love one of these.

Bob: We'll give you one of these to take back.

Dennis: I'll swap one of your buttons for one of our "What God Wants for Christmas."

Brenda: I'll send you the buttons, anyway. You know, we gave the buttons away as prizes on my show, and people liked them better than the books and stuff we gave away. But I know if we get – one day I was at – well, you know, it's a food place, and it was the Christmas season, and I was standing in line waiting to get some food, and I always fill up my – I used to fill up my pockets with the buttons, and I would hand them out to people, and I gave – I saw this old man who walked by, and he was kind of like walking, and I gave him the button, and his face lit up – I mean, literally lit up.

And about seven minutes later, there he was again with 10 people.

Dennis: He wanted 10 more buttons.

Brenda: Right. And I gave him the buttons, and they smiled – the look on these people's faces I will never forget as long as I live. They were so happy. It was like I had given them, really, a gift.

Now, imagine what a child thinks when he sees himself. You know how children love to see themselves. When they see themselves in that box, and it immediately weds them to Christ.

Bob: See, we thought, as our team created this resource, we thought "Here is way that a family can really have an activity, something fun that you can do. That's what your book is all about.

Brenda: Mm-hm.

Bob: Things that families can do that will keep the holiday season centered on Christ, and this is our contribution to that effort.

Dennis: It's the story about Christmas, ultimately applied …

Brenda: But it's so lovely. I mean, the quality of– the construction of the material is so great, and you can use it year after year.

Bob: That's the idea. And how much do you think you'd have to pay for something like that?

Brenda: $18.95?

Bob: Yes, that's right about the price.

Brenda: I also –

Bob: You do a little shopping, don't you?

Brenda: Right.

[laughter]

Dennis: But, you know, the thing is, Brenda, it is about making Christ known to the next …

Brenda: And it's also the customs that you develop – new ones – keep the old ones and develop new ones like this. We are alive. We serve a living God who is creative all the time. So we can come up with new things that we can add to our old traditions, and we can expand them rather than finding ourselves hiding at Christmastime, I want us to go and take back the public square and unashamedly say, "We are Christians. We are celebrating a Christmas holiday, and it's focused on Christ, and we are going to do it unashamedly."

Bob: Well, and that certainly ought to be what's at the center of our homes and our families at Christmastime, because, as we said, we are setting the table for the future for the – really, for the identity that our children will growth up with.

Brenda: And also to welcome Christ into your home officially.

Dennis: And to introduce your children to Him so they can have a relationship with Him. This is at the heart, this is …

Brenda: One of my ideas in the book is I set a place for Christ at the table during Christmastime. I put a purple place setting with a crown on it. And we know that this is Christ's seat at the table, and He is there throughout all of the holiday season, all of the celebrations we have, all the parties we have. When people come in, they can see that Christ is sitting at the table enjoying the party with us.

Dennis: Yes, and that He didn't just come to be at the party.

Brenda: Right.

Dennis: He came to be Lord of our lives.

Bob: Again, if you look at the opportunity that we have in this season to highlight Jesus, it's there – the expression you use all the time is it's "a set to a spike." The culture is setting the ball, and all we have to do is hop up and spike it.

And, Brenda, you've given us some great ideas in the book that you've written – "101 Ways to Have a Christian Christmas." It's a book that we've got here in our FamilyLife Resource Center, and if our listeners are interested in getting a copy, they can go to our website at FamilyLife.com. You click the red – the Christmas red button that says "Go," and that will take you to the area of the website where there is more information about Brenda's book. There is also information about the Nativity set that we were talking about called "What God Wants for Christmas," and interactive Nativity set for families to use.

You can order that online at FamilyLife.com, or you can call 1-800-FLTODAY. That's 1-800-358-6329, that's 1-800-F-as-in-family, L-as-in-life, and then the word TODAY. Ask how you can get a copy of Brenda's book or the "What God Wants for Christmas" Nativity set, and we'll make arrangements to have what you need sent out to you.

And, you know, while we're talking about how we keep Christ at the center of our Christmas celebration, one way we do that is by embracing a spirit of giving. That's what the Christmas message is about – "That God so loved the world that He gave His only Son." And we have opportunities to imitate God as we practice that discipline of giving, and that goes beyond what we give one another at Christmastime and goes to how we can help give and support the work that God is doing all around the world.

Let me again remind you – our conviction here at FamilyLife is that when it comes to the area of financial giving, your first priority as a giver ought to be to your local church. Some of you are able beyond that to help support ministries like FamilyLife Today, and we appreciate those of you who are able to help with our financial needs here at FamilyLife.

In fact, here in the last weeks of the year, we've had some friends of the ministry who have come along and agreed to match any donation we receive in December on a dollar-for-dollar basis up to a total of $500,000. So when you make a $50 donation to FamilyLife Today, it becomes a $100 donation, and whatever you are able to go gets double all the way up to that total of $500,000.

We're hoping to take full advantage of that matching gift opportunity, and so we're hoping that you will go to our website at FamilyLife.com, or call us at 1-800-FLTODAY and make a donation to FamilyLife Today and, again, when you do, you can know that donation is being doubled. You can donate online at FamilyLife.com or you can call to make a donation over the phone at 1-800-F-as-in-family, L-as-in-life, and then the word TODAY. And we want to say thanks in advance for joining with us and for your financial support of this ministry.

Well, tomorrow we're going to continue to talk about how we keep Christ right where He belongs not just at Christmastime but all year 'round; how He can be at the center of our Christmas celebration. I hope you can be back with us for that.

I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine. We'll see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today.

FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ.