Jesus Wasn’t Born to Protect Your Traditions

Every December, the pressure shows up. Not loudly at first, but steadily. You hear it in group texts and family conversations. You feel it when people start saying things like, “We just want it to feel like Christmas,” and “We’ve never done it like that before.”

Same food. 
Same music. 
Same decorations. 
Same stories, even when they get less accurate every year. 

The hope is that if we recreate the holiday exactly the way we remember it, everything will settle back into place.

But life does not work that way. 

People change. 
Families change. 
Someone is missing this year. 
Someone new is here. 
Grief shows up. 
Exhaustion tags along. 

And suddenly, holding everything together feels like a performance instead of a celebration.

Myth to Unlearn

The myth is that there is a “right way” to do Christmas. 
The myth is that traditions are automatically sacred simply because they are familiar. 
The myth is that changing anything means losing something essential.

But traditions were never meant to rule us. They were meant to help us gather. They were meant to help us remember what matters. When they stop doing that, adjusting them is not betrayal. It is care.

Jesus was not born to guard the past. He was born into a world that was already changing.

The Pattern We Keep Missing

Jesus chose people over patterns.
Compassion over comfort.
Inclusion over order.

Again and again.

He disrupted dinner tables. 
He ignored rules that harmed people. 
He refused to treat tradition as more important than human need. 

That was not rebellion for rebellion’s sake. That was love doing what love does.

So when someone says, “This is just how we’ve always done it,” that is not holiness speaking. That is habit. And habits can change when they stop making room for real people.

Where This Gets Personal

This is not theoretical. This lands in real living rooms.

It lands with the one carrying grief and expected to smile anyway.
With the queer kid told to tone it down for the sake of peace.
With the blended family trying to split time without splitting themselves apart.
With the person setting boundaries just to survive the season.

When traditions cannot bend, people get hurt. And that was never the point.

What Faithfulness Actually Looks Like

You are allowed to change the menu.
You are allowed to skip a tradition.
You are allowed to start something new.

You are allowed to choose what helps people feel safe.
You are allowed to choose what helps people feel seen.
You are allowed to choose what helps people feel loved.

That is not giving up on Christmas. That is leaning into its heart.

Closing Blessing with a Bit of Bite

Jesus was not born to freeze everything in place. He was born to move hearts. He was born to make room. He was born to remind us that people matter more than rituals.

So hold traditions loosely.
Hold people tenderly.
Hold space generously.

That sounds a lot more like the season than nostalgia ever could.