Dale Partridge - December 05, 2018


Ultimate Marriage #22： Should Christians Include Santa, Christmas Trees, and Presents？


Episode Stats


Length

29 minutes

Words per minute

177.1785

Word count

5,256

Sentence count

182

Harmful content

Hate speech

13

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, we talk about why Christians should celebrate Christmas. We discuss what Christmas is to us as a Christian and why it's important to have a Christian celebration of the season. We also talk about the history of Christmas and why we should celebrate it.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 hey guys welcome to ultimate marriage today we are talking about christmas christmas that's
00:00:16.760 santa christmas trees gifts should christians include those things in their celebration so
00:00:23.560 this is i think an important show because a lot of people ask us this question what do you guys do
00:00:28.440 with santa claus what do you guys do about christmas tree like i saw that you guys don't
00:00:31.380 celebrate halloween why do you guys celebrate christmas it's a pagan holiday like all that
00:00:34.940 stuff that that comes out um and i think probably you get stuff from the moms like you know what do
00:00:41.860 you do do you do gifts do you do advent what does it look like yeah um so yeah we're going to talk
00:00:48.160 about that uh before we dive into the show a couple announcements i want to make that just i
00:00:53.320 think we'll help you guys ease into the process. First is we're going to do our next show. We're
00:01:01.200 kind of doing a holiday season stuff right now. So the next show is going to be how to, or how
00:01:07.040 Christians should handle holiday family conflict. And I think this happens with married couples 0.92
00:01:14.120 all the time. Every year. Yeah. And I got to go deal with my in-laws. I got to go deal with my 0.95
00:01:19.640 parents and there's no boundaries and there's whatever so that that episode's coming up next
00:01:24.240 so just you know be excited for that because i think that's it'll help you even if you don't
00:01:28.980 struggle with that i think there's content there that you'll enjoy so you can help other couples
00:01:32.860 yeah i wanted also there's content there that could apply even outside of the holiday season
00:01:37.200 yeah exactly uh on just the boundaries of family um so if you guys haven't left a review um by just
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00:02:16.020 Um, the last thing I want to say before we get started is that we are taking retreat
00:02:20.120 applications for our ultimate marriage retreat coming up this May.
00:02:23.920 The dates are May 30th, uh, 31st and the 1st of June.
00:02:29.400 And, um, so if you're interested, just go to ultimate marriage.com forward slash retreat
00:02:33.960 and you can, um, or just go to ultimate marriage.com and you can just like go to the retreats
00:02:38.700 tab and apply to come, but we have a few more spaces.
00:02:41.960 We'd love to have you guys come.
00:02:43.020 They're super fun.
00:02:44.300 They're very fun.
00:02:45.160 um okay let's talk about christmas um you want to start off yeah so talking about christmas
00:02:53.480 and traditions and things that people do for the holidays i think it's important for us to
00:02:58.320 remember that tradition is a teacher so what we do as a family for traditions is actually teaching
00:03:04.340 your children or is it teaching your child about god or do they compete with god do they compliment
00:03:11.880 or do they compete with it yeah and this happens for a lot of families is that are your traditions
00:03:16.220 especially around christmas conflicting or competing against god's narrative about
00:03:21.640 i guess why we're doing christmas or are they complementing it yeah and that's an important
00:03:27.280 part um and uh yeah so that's just something that we need to to look at yeah and ask yourself that
00:03:35.080 especially obviously we're talking about christmas regarding towards the holidays
00:03:38.380 regarded towards christmas yeah and this is obviously christmas is an extra biblical activity
00:03:43.560 okay so we we're not saying that there's a we're not going to give you a biblical uh mandate
00:03:49.340 doctrine on why you should celebrate or should not celebrate christmas um so i want to just kind of
00:03:54.860 give you guys some context about christmas i think it's important for christians to understand this
00:03:59.100 because it is confusing territory so i'm going to give you just a little bit of history before we
00:04:03.020 dive into some stuff. So how do we get Christmas? Well, it comes from the word Christ Mass. That
00:04:10.220 like Mass is like, you know, Eucharist Mass, like Catholic Mass, Christ Mass. And I looked up some
00:04:17.160 research. So if you're seeing me, if you're watching the video, I'm looking at some notes
00:04:20.140 as I'm doing this. In the year 221, this guy named Julius Africanus, okay, he identified
00:04:27.920 died um december 25th as the birth of jesus and was actually universally accepted as the birth of
00:04:35.840 jesus again if you look at it now and you do some research it's probably not the right date
00:04:39.500 but at the end of the day there is no way that we're going to ever know jesus's exact birth
00:04:44.120 but that's when the church kind of just universally agreed that hey december 25th
00:04:48.560 uh it happened in as far back as 221 that's the day that people are going to celebrate it yes
00:04:54.780 Exactly. And in Rome, this is some cool history because this is backed up in like Roman historians, Greek historians, Jewish historians and Christian historians.
00:05:08.900 So this is like I would say I feel pretty confident that this is a true story here.
00:05:12.640 In Rome, there was a popular holiday held on December 25th or around that season titled The Day of the Birth of the Unconquered Sun, S-U-N, Sun.
00:05:25.840 And it was this day of celebrating the sun, the sun god, and it had a lot of pagan roots to it. 0.69
00:05:32.080 And Christians, really in an attempt to, I guess, show a better way to, you know, I say superiority of the one true God, started actually having Christmas gatherings at that same season.
00:05:46.500 And there's that kind of pun of the unconquered sun, S-O-N.
00:05:50.620 And so those things were happening at that time.
00:05:52.860 It was really an alternative, especially in the form of an advent, because I believe that Roman holiday was a multi-day kind of winter solstice type thing. 0.63
00:06:01.400 And so Christmas really came as the church's or Christian's attempt to create their own Christ-centered tradition while the Romans were doing something else.
00:06:18.160 And I think it was an evangelistic outreach opportunity on that conversation. 0.64
00:06:21.700 We're putting Christ back in Christmas.
00:06:23.100 Yeah, exactly. 0.66
00:06:24.580 We actually say Merry Jesus-mas.
00:06:26.140 Merry Jesus-mas.
00:06:26.960 And so, you know, then they started doing what's called the Advent, and the Advent means coming in Latin.
00:06:37.000 So that's what that word means.
00:06:38.880 But it's not just talking about his first coming.
00:06:40.720 The way we need to be viewing Advent is it's also—it's really broken down in the church history as three different types of coming.
00:06:49.680 So the first coming is him being born, the incarnation of God as a human.
00:06:55.780 That's the first coming of Jesus.
00:06:57.300 The second one, the way that the church, again, reflects this, is coming into our lives.
00:07:02.940 And so he's coming into our lives, into our hearts.
00:07:05.660 He's living with inside of us the Holy Spirit in that way.
00:07:07.920 And then the third coming is the coming again, the second coming of Christ to bring judgment.
00:07:14.280 And so the Advent season is really intended to not just talk about just his birth, but that he's coming again.
00:07:21.680 And I thought that was an interesting thing that I think a lot of people miss today.
00:07:28.600 Advent goes back all the way to the 500s.
00:07:32.060 And so this has been going on for a long time.
00:07:35.240 Church history, again, is it extra biblical?
00:07:38.480 Yeah.
00:07:39.360 Is it unbiblical?
00:07:40.540 No. 0.99
00:07:41.400 And is it fun?
00:07:42.840 Yeah.
00:07:43.500 And so it's the four Sundays leading up to Christmas Day.
00:07:46.960 That's what Advent is.
00:07:48.220 and so it's celebrating um jesus's birth um you know this thing that we shouldn't do i go again
00:07:56.960 there's well you do easter is that a biblical no is good friday biblical uh no lent no again
00:08:03.800 but these are interesting moments that we have created to help us remember the things that
00:08:09.780 christ did for us can tradition become so powerful that you actually bow down to tradition
00:08:14.780 before you bow down to doctrine yeah because like has it become an idol in your life yeah and for
00:08:20.060 many denominations that has uh i don't think christmas is doing that especially in the
00:08:25.600 protestant church um i don't think that celebrating christmas is sinful especially done if it's done
00:08:31.340 in a correct heart um i think it's a great opportunity uh the entire country the entire
00:08:38.020 world people who aren't human christians celebrate it are talking about christmas it's a great time
00:08:43.380 to talk about jesus and so if you want to kind of remove yourself from that conversation by saying
00:08:49.280 we're not going to celebrate you can do that um but i'm just saying is that there's an opportunity
00:08:53.500 here christmas carols uh singing these songs that are talking about jesus that even the secular
00:08:59.380 world sings um talking about the need for a savior there's so much there that i just would
00:09:05.040 hate for christians to kind of pull away from because they're trying to be extra holy extra
00:09:09.920 of separate. Again, you know, where scripture is clear, God demands our behavior. But where
00:09:15.940 scripture is obscure, God looks at our hearts. And so on Christmas, that's one of those things.
00:09:20.840 So Veronica's going to share what we do as a family. And then I'm going to talk about Santa
00:09:25.500 Christmas trees and gifts. All right. So we celebrate the Advent. And we try and get the
00:09:31.400 kids excited about the coming of Jesus. What's Christmas about? Jesus's birth. But also about
00:09:38.400 like what dale shared the the second coming of jesus um about his return and so we talk a lot
00:09:43.940 about that in our home um and so we celebrate the advent which includes a few things um we want to
00:09:50.480 teach our children how beautiful christ's birth truly was for the world and not just for the
00:09:54.120 world but for themselves um it's a great time to just again preach the gospel to your own kids
00:09:59.060 yeah and practice preaching the gospel to other people by preaching it to your kids yes um and
00:10:05.040 then kids need reminders that um about the what's so beautiful about the representation of the
00:10:12.780 advent yes and so we'll use things like the advent calendar I know a lot of people have
00:10:17.740 advent calendars and some people put like candy in each day some people put activities um I've
00:10:23.300 seen all different types of things some people just put like little hanging ornaments on there
00:10:28.020 in this advent calendar we have one on our wall it's like 24 days and then in each day there's a
00:10:33.400 little like activity or something to do so um some of the things are fun just just fun little
00:10:39.580 things activities for the kids to do like go make a snowman or um go make daddy breakfast go make
00:10:46.140 dad breakfast and then other things a lot of i would that was my next category babe are things
00:10:51.220 to serve or be generous and so yeah to serve one another so go make dad breakfast or um i think
00:10:57.460 last year we did um wash each other's feet yep um and so then we'll read the story along out of
00:11:03.840 the bible that goes along with those types of activities yeah um there's also one that like
00:11:08.640 get a few gift like five dollar gift cards and go give them to some tired moms or offer to babysit
00:11:14.120 like so it's also a time for us to serve other people as well um and help the children understand
00:11:22.100 that that it's not just all about us yeah and these little calendars are cool they have like
00:11:26.740 pockets that you could like put these little slips in there and like you know tell you what to do for
00:11:30.340 the day and um it is the repetition is important for little kids so they can go oh okay like oh i
00:11:37.620 get it i get it like i don't want them to be confused at all about what about jesus's birth
00:11:42.340 the gospel and it's a great time to just be hammered into their head yeah and we read like
00:11:47.060 a couple of advent books to them every day um you know a lot of times people families will just have
00:11:52.120 like just this one um I've got like two or three of them that I like to read and I'll read a couple
00:11:56.860 and especially because my kids aren't the type of kids that like you'll sit there read them a story
00:12:01.340 and then they're done like they want you to read book after book after book after book and so one
00:12:05.660 of the things that I was going to do this year was have a Christmas uh type advent book for them to
00:12:11.880 read every day and they were going to be able to open a new book every day and we'd read that one
00:12:14.960 book but again they like to read book after book after book and one book is just not I mean they
00:12:20.500 they would just like more and so i was like you know i'm just gonna put all the books in a christmas
00:12:24.540 basket so we have our christmas advent basket with all of our christmas books in it um and so
00:12:29.900 we'll sit there and read through the different books and so especially the advent ones i'll read
00:12:35.280 like since i have multiple i'll read the you know day four advent um out of the two different books
00:12:41.220 that morning and then i'll read um the other ones in the evening and they just get really
00:12:45.980 a good perspective multiple angles of the christmas story um different conversation
00:12:51.180 starters we ask them questions after we're done reading what does this mean you know you know and
00:12:55.900 just you know what is um you know why did jesus come here you know like just giving them some
00:13:00.460 promptings and um it's fun it's it's again and those obviously change we have little kids so
00:13:04.840 yeah they love it i mean more complex with the older kids they love reading in general but so
00:13:09.560 these are like special books that only come out you know this time of year and so they're really
00:13:14.300 excited about it um but the big question we get all the time is do you tell your children about
00:13:19.660 santa claus do your children believe in santa claus yeah short answer is no yeah no i'm gonna
00:13:25.420 give you guys the how i think christians should at least consider this um here you know here's
00:13:30.980 how we view it so god commands us as humans uh but if we're talking to christians here as christians
00:13:38.440 to not lie. The Ten Commandments specifically say to not bear false witness. Ephesians 4.25
00:13:45.300 says, therefore, laying aside all falsehood, speak truth, each one of you with his neighbor,
00:13:52.360 for we are members of one another. And I mean, that's just one of many scriptures that are
00:13:57.060 talking about speaking the truth. Don't deceive people. Don't mislead people. And, you know,
00:14:04.280 we look at teaching our children that santa exists and you should believe in him as lying 0.55
00:14:11.260 like that's really just what it is it is deceptive it is training your children to believe a lie
00:14:17.180 well it's even in like christmas songs like he sees you when you're sleeping he knows when you're
00:14:22.160 awake he knows if you've been bad or good so be good for goodness sake and i'm always like
00:14:25.260 jesus sees you when you're sleeping so this is god knows when you're awake like it's it's
00:14:31.700 it's in you know intertwined in everything yeah this is actually the culture's uh replacement
00:14:37.620 figure for christ that that's what it is it's the counterfeit option i mean saint nicholas was a
00:14:44.140 historical sure character but we know today that like nobody knows that saint nicholas history and
00:14:49.760 it was again i think a good ploy on the enemy of just kind of getting him in there um but it is
00:14:55.720 it's a distraction um it's the culture's alternative to the true reason for the season
00:15:03.520 and um and there you know that's what that's what's happened so um you know santa replaces
00:15:10.840 the gift of salvation with the entitlement of materialism and so if you see little kids that
00:15:16.480 are excited i remember as a little kid you know we did santa claus and all this kind of stuff and i
00:15:20.640 was really bummed if I didn't get what I wanted. I remember calling my friends and being jealous
00:15:25.700 of what they got and I didn't get. It built up a really negative heart in me. And remembering
00:15:34.840 that when I found out that Santa wasn't real, I remember I used to write letters to him.
00:15:42.300 I did all these things that were a part of that. And lots of people do this. You leave cookies out,
00:15:47.480 right you leave milk out all these different things that would happen and this is with tooth
00:15:51.960 fairy easter bunny again all these kind of deceptions and um you know what you need to
00:15:59.320 realize what's happening is you're telling your children hey there's these characters that you
00:16:04.440 can't see but you should believe in and then you find out that your parents are lying to you and
00:16:11.900 then they come to you and they say well there's this guy jesus who you can't see but you should
00:16:15.200 believe in and you go well why should i believe you about jesus but you lied to me about the tooth
00:16:22.200 fairy the easter bunny and santa claus and so you create yourself a conundrum that you're actually
00:16:29.120 dismantling the trust between you and your child and it's it's just unwise just it's just not
00:16:36.540 something to do um and we should be very careful uh not to allow our children's eyes to get
00:16:42.700 diverted uh diverted toward anything but christ in this season again everybody's worrying for
00:16:49.740 these little ones hearts you know and the candy and the food and the and the toys and the things
00:16:54.960 that they get in the celebration it could easily become something that is pagan um that is
00:17:01.880 dangerous especially because it could be a distortion of what this tradition was originally
00:17:08.500 created for so christians need to protect it by saying hey you see this like keep christ in
00:17:13.320 christmas and the real reason for the season you see you hear these things in the church and it's
00:17:17.420 it's important that we really do protect that as the church um if we want to continue to celebrate
00:17:22.500 that um and so that's that's something that our perspective that we need to take on why not telling
00:17:32.480 your kids that santa is real just take that into consideration yeah like i mean just like you said
00:17:37.780 presenting Santa's real is just a reality of possibly breaking the trust between you and your
00:17:42.520 child. Yeah. And that's just something that you want to be careful for. And just remember that
00:17:46.420 it's a commandment, like thou shall not lie. Um, and so it's just something to, to think about.
00:17:53.660 So, um, let's next, let's next, let's talk about Christmas trees and gifts. Um, so we do both in
00:18:04.260 our family. Um, but we have a core teaching that helps our children to place these elements in the
00:18:10.220 correct place in their hearts. Yeah. We're working hard to, you know, make sure that it's not about
00:18:15.620 the Christmas tree. It's not about the gifts. It's, um, and you have to work hard because, um,
00:18:21.020 the culture is not going to help you. You know, they're, they're going to, they're going to have
00:18:23.860 these songs that have nothing to do with Jesus. They're going to have these expectations of
00:18:28.540 gifting that has nothing to do with Jesus there, uh, or even generosity. It turns into materialism.
00:18:33.920 There's going to be all these things that are competing for keeping this opportunity that we have to really spend a 24-day period focusing on Jesus, especially for our families, even for ourselves, to turn it into something that's actually not that valuable at all.
00:18:51.880 All right.
00:18:52.500 So there's a scripture that all these people write me when we put up our Christmas tree, right?
00:18:57.920 And we put up our Christmas tree, and they're like, you know that Christmas trees are pagan.
00:19:02.620 and I go okay okay so you know they give me this verse everybody sends me this verse 0.83
00:19:07.520 same verse this is Jeremiah 10 2 through 4 it says thus says the Lord learn not the way of the
00:19:14.640 nations nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens because the nations are dismayed at them
00:19:19.240 for the customs of the peoples are vanity a tree from the forest is cut down and worked with an axe
00:19:26.320 by the hands of a craftsman they decorate it with silver and gold they fasten it with a hammer
00:19:32.460 and nails so that it cannot move okay if you take a piece of scripture out of context
00:19:40.040 you can make anything mean anything and so this is 2,000 years before Christmas tree idea has
00:19:48.380 ever existed if you catch the whole context of this entire chapter which I have read I actually
00:19:53.740 They just recently wrote an entire paper on Jeremiah chapter 10.
00:19:59.700 This is a command to the nation of Israel,
00:20:05.420 specifically within the Old Covenant, 0.80
00:20:09.760 on not to learn the way of the nations. 0.87
00:20:13.800 This is before the Gentiles had salvation offered to them.
00:20:18.100 And the context of the chapter makes it abundantly clear
00:20:21.900 that Jeremiah is condemning the practice of carving idols to worship,
00:20:27.380 not festively decorating Christmas trees.
00:20:30.500 And the reason is, is that, well, where do you get a wooden idol?
00:20:33.280 Well, it comes from a tree.
00:20:36.100 And so it's talking about, if you read the rest of the section,
00:20:38.980 that you cut down a tree and you carve it into something else.
00:20:41.960 It's not talking about putting a Christmas, a tree.
00:20:44.240 No one is laying down and worshiping a tree.
00:20:48.280 They're taking the wood from a tree, carving it into an idol,
00:20:52.100 And he even says in the next verse, like a scarecrow in a cucumber field are they, and they cannot speak. 0.95
00:21:01.320 They must be carried because they cannot walk.
00:21:03.900 Do not fear them, for they can do no harm, nor can they do any good.
00:21:08.780 And so it's, again, it's not talking about trees.
00:21:11.780 It's talking about the wood that starts as a tree and ends up as a idol that people are literally bowing down to and worshiping.
00:21:21.500 so yes if you're worshiping your christmas tree then they are bad you should not be worshiping
00:21:26.900 your tree yeah and check your heart because like is a christmas tree like an absolute necessity
00:21:32.400 every year like we have to have a christmas tree or else it's not christmas like is it becoming an
00:21:37.180 idol in your heart yeah yeah and are they extra biblical yes again as i said but are they unbiblical
00:21:44.280 No.
00:21:45.780 You know, are they a distraction from Christ?
00:21:48.360 They could be.
00:21:50.100 They're not in our house, you know.
00:21:52.540 And let me give you kind of some more history of how the Christmas tree kind of came to be.
00:21:56.500 And so they really started as early as the 13th century.
00:22:00.240 Some people say the 16th century, but there's references to Christmas trees early back.
00:22:04.220 They were always the evergreen tree, which is, again, a type of pine.
00:22:08.240 this idea that all trees, well, not all trees, most trees shed their leaves, and they, you know,
00:22:15.380 die, if you will, in the fall. But the evergreen tree doesn't. The needles stay on the tree,
00:22:20.740 and it was this representation that, like, it never dies. And so they had this part of the
00:22:25.620 Christmas Advent season to be a tree to represent and symbolize that Christ lives on. The other
00:22:33.620 thing is that Jesus is referenced in the scriptures in a variety of different ways is the
00:22:38.520 tree of life. And so inside of your house, you have this, again, Christmas season that Jesus is
00:22:43.760 the tree of life. And so, you know, last night I just taught the kids, look, you know, our Christmas
00:22:48.840 tree is like Jesus is the tree of life. He just keeps on living. And so there's some fun symbolism
00:22:53.480 there. Revelations 22 says, through the middle of the street of the cities, talking about heaven,
00:23:00.440 also on either side of the river the tree of life with its 12 kinds of fruit yielding each fruit
00:23:07.420 each month the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations and so again there's some
00:23:12.700 fun references in the scriptures i just read an article by charles spurgeon about that
00:23:16.260 yeah it's just fun so is it is it sinful i don't think so um it can be but christmas trees are fun
00:23:24.080 if you bring some fun symbolism to teach your children about i mean jesus calls himself you
00:23:29.820 know we're under wings like eagles he calls himself you know the lion is he
00:23:33.940 really a lion no is he really a tree no but they're fun symbolism that we get to
00:23:39.820 use to help explain to our families and even to our own souls the identity of
00:23:45.280 Christ all right there's my teaching moving on next topic is gifts so we do
00:23:53.460 gifts um in our home and we do one gift per child um plus stockings and we try you know stay pretty
00:24:02.820 modest with the amount we spend on the gift veronica crushed it this year i did awesome this
00:24:08.180 year i'm not gonna lie i spent 51 on all three of their gifts yeah all three of them combined
00:24:13.520 not individually so i was pretty proud of myself and they're gonna like them they're gonna love
00:24:18.260 those gifts yeah and so um so yeah we do gifts um but we do not want our children to be more
00:24:23.600 excited about what they receive physically as a material possession than what they are given
00:24:28.760 than what is given to them through christ and so that's all like again it's just a constant reminder
00:24:34.040 in our home what we're talking about the advent season giving back serving one another um all
00:24:40.720 those things are just constant especially throughout the month of december yeah in our home
00:24:45.240 um and so with the gifts we need to remember that material things breeds entitlement yes and
00:24:53.820 entitlement breeds a lack of gratitude yes and which we are if you are a parent you know especially
00:25:00.820 to toddlers yeah we are in the midst of just training our kids on gratitude it is and it's
00:25:05.160 not natural that's to them you know i mean they have their they have a flesh that loves gifts and
00:25:10.500 loves toys and they so it's it's a constant training and teaching of them and i mean some
00:25:16.440 days they get it some days they don't yeah and it'll be probably several years of doing this
00:25:21.940 you know many years um so christmas is a great opportunity to model generosity again that's why
00:25:28.920 we have the advent calendar um things that we do just to remind us to be generous and serve others
00:25:35.080 But the main point is, is your focus on the gift or on the ultimate gift giver?
00:25:41.700 Yeah. And that's just the core of this conversation.
00:25:45.160 So, yeah, we try to navigate this Christmas season according to what we know about God and scripture.
00:25:53.340 It's fun. It's a great opportunity.
00:25:56.000 Should we hide in a hole during Christmas?
00:25:58.280 And we have friends that have been down this road and they remember that one year they just decided to not celebrate Christmas.
00:26:06.060 And like they were just going to kind of plant their flag in that camp over there.
00:26:10.060 And they said it was like the most depressing day ever.
00:26:14.460 And so, you know, there's just some fun in doing this.
00:26:18.860 Let's go spread the gospel.
00:26:20.460 Let's use this as an opportunity when the whole church and the whole culture is actually admitting that, you know, Christmas exists and that there's a possibility that Jesus did come and they're open to those conversations.
00:26:32.140 And so they're singing these songs already.
00:26:34.460 And so it's just and it also, you know, family and these things are, you know, are still morally common in terms of just we're getting together as a family.
00:26:47.420 The gift thing I wanted to mention is that it's also a great opportunity to teach generosity to your children.
00:26:53.140 So gifting is not all bad.
00:26:58.300 You know, generosity is obviously a very clear command in Scripture to be generous.
00:27:03.860 And you've got to teach your kids how to do that really young.
00:27:05.660 And so getting them to make a gift for mom or make a gift for dad,
00:27:09.260 it's an opportunity to, again, bring more biblical Christ-like principles into young people's hearts.
00:27:16.580 And so that's what we do for the Christmas season.
00:27:22.080 And so our next conversation, again, is going to be how to deal with family conflict in the holiday season,
00:27:29.520 which we get it every year, and it's a hard thing to deal with.
00:27:35.420 And so we're going to bring some Christian biblical principles to bear on that topic.
00:27:41.480 You feel good, babe?
00:27:42.680 Yeah, I think so.
00:27:44.900 I feel like we forgot to do two things.
00:27:48.100 We forgot to bring a question, which is okay.
00:27:50.620 And we forgot to get a memory verse.
00:27:52.600 Well, a memory verse, yeah.
00:27:53.820 You know, and I'm just going to do a Dale fail.
00:27:59.060 That's what that is.
00:28:00.020 That's my cue at this point. 0.94
00:28:02.800 Hey, you guys have Bibles.
00:28:03.580 You can read them.
00:28:04.500 Pick out a verse and memorize it.
00:28:06.400 Yeah, so sorry, guys.
00:28:07.260 We didn't get a memory verse for you guys this week.
00:28:09.140 We got three hours of sleep last night.
00:28:10.720 And so we, yeah, we're just kind of floating by, you know, just the seat of our pants are
00:28:16.240 now just like, oh, okay.
00:28:17.880 So anyways, thanks for joining us today.
00:28:19.980 Again, if you guys would leave a review for the podcast, it'd be a huge help.
00:28:23.820 Those reviews really do help the exposure of the show and more couples can actually
00:28:27.660 hear and see the content available.
00:28:29.780 It changes where iTunes places the show.
00:28:31.980 So thank you guys.
00:28:33.480 And we will see you guys next week.
00:28:37.280 Thank you for joining us on this episode of Ultimate Marriage.
00:28:39.920 If you're homesick for a stronger marriage, visit our website at ultimatemarriage.com and consider enrolling in our one-year online marriage mentor program.
00:28:47.920 Also, if you're interested in learning more about building a better marriage, follow Veronica and I on social media where each week we share tips, tricks, and lessons on building a biblical marriage.
00:29:09.920 We'll be right back.