Christmas Memories and Traditions | Dr. Jeff Crawford
This week on RonnieFloyd.com, Pastor and several Cross Church staff members are sharing their Christmas memories and traditions. Today, we hear from Dr. Jeff Crawford, President of Cross Church School of Ministry and Cross Church Teaching Pastor. You can read more from Pastor and other Cross Church staff members about their Christmas traditions at RonnieFloyd.com now thru December 24.
I credit my parents for my love for Christmas. The Christmas season was always a BIG deal to Mom and she was the master of the home when it came to putting up the decorations, baking goodies, playing Christmas music, etc. But the Christmas tree was Dad’s domain. With Dad being an over-the-road truck driver, I grew up in a modest home in Fort Smith with my two older brothers and younger sister. Sometime after Thanksgiving, when Dad was home from one of his trips in his truck, we would load up the whole family and head out to get the tree – always a live tree! Sometimes it would come from a tree lot but other times we would go to old family land in Kibler and cut it down ourselves and bring it home tied to the top of the car, a la Christmas Vacation! 
Dad would also lead the annual ritual of hauling the ladder out of the garage to string lights on the house and through the assorted bushes in the front. But Mom was the one who steered the Christmas traditions. She shopped for the gifts, wrapped and placed them under the tree, and made sure we all knew when A Charlie Brown Christmas was airing on TV – before the advent of the DVR when you had one, and only one, shot at a TV show. Both Mom and Dad are believers, so Jesus was always THE center of Christmas in our home.
I think that most of us never realize the impact our parents have on us and how much of them is in us until we grow up and have families of our own. When Julie and I were first married, I never thought of anything but a LIVE Christmas tree, with all the mess that comes with them. And multi-colored, big-bulb lights are the only lights allowed on the roofline of my home – just like Dad used to hang. We play lots of Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, and even some Elvis Presley in our house when it comes to Christmas music selections. Julie has taken the lead on so many other Christmas traditions for our family, some of them brand new – like every Christmas Eve the kids all get a new set of pajamas to wear to bed. Our house is always full of the smells of baked treats from Thanksgiving all the way through Christmas, and we always DVR A Charlie Brown Christmas so we can watch it when we want to watch it – some years more than once.
But Jesus is always the focus. A tradition our family celebrates is Advent. With a family wreath and candles, we gather around once a week from Thanksgiving through Christmas morning to read Scripture, share thoughts, pray, and sing carols. It is, I think, my favorite Christmas tradition of all.
Dr. Jeff Crawford
President, Cross Church School of Ministry and Teaching Pastor, Cross Church
@jeffcraw4d
Dr. Ronnie Floyd is the President & CEO of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee.
Christmas Memories and Traditions | Matt Slaughter
This week on RonnieFloyd.com, Pastor and several Cross Church staff members are sharing their Christmas memories and traditions. Today, we hear from Matt Slaughter, Millennial Pastor at the Springdale campus. You can read more from Pastor and other Cross Church staff members about their Christmas traditions at RonnieFloyd.com now thru December 24.
As the son of a Tyson man, I grew up all over—Colcord, OK, Fayetteville, Berryville, and DeQueen, AR. But no matter where we were living at the time, we always spent Christmas Eve night at my grandparents’ house in Prairie Grove, AR. Probably the tradition I treasure the most involved my Grandpa John and how he would gather all the kids around his chair (as many of us that would fit piled onto his lap), and he would read us The Night Before Christmas. As a kid, every word captured our imaginations, and even though we had heard the story year after year, we all seemed to be sitting on pins and needles, waiting to see how it would end.
As I grew up and had a family of my own, it was my children and my sister’s children who fought for a place on Grandpa’s lap as he read The Night Before Christmas from the very same book he read to us. And every year, our children were just as captivated by the story as we were way back then.
In August of 2012, my Grandpa John went to be with the Lord, and not a day passes that we don’t miss him. Now on Christmas Eve, my sister and I meet with our families at my mom and dad’s house, gather the children together, and I read The Night Before Christmas from Grandpa John’s book. The kids aren’t nearly as excited to listen to me read as they were Grandpa, and they let me know I’m not doing the voices right. But it’s an extraordinarily special time for our family. It’s a time to honor a longstanding family tradition, but most of all, a time to honor and remember a man we loved so much.
Now, every Christmas Eve, after the reading of The Night Before Christmas, we open a Bible to the Gospel of Luke and read about the birth of Jesus. My prayer is that the story of His birth—the idea of Emmanuel, God with us—captivates the hearts of our children like nothing else. I want them going to sleep on Christmas Eve with excitement like every child should, but also, with an understanding of what the excitement is all about…WHO the excitement is all about. I want my kids to understand that though we miss Grandpa John every day, it’s that little Baby who is our every hope. It’s that Baby we read about in Luke every Christmas Eve, who left Heaven for Earth, and made it possible for us to see Grandpa’s face again. I know that I for one cannot wait.
Matt Slaughter
Millennial Pastor, Springdale campus
@mattLslaughter
Dr. Ronnie Floyd is the President & CEO of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee.