The gospel brings freedom and perspective to our holiday traditions as we intentionally choose what and how to celebrate in our homes.

The gospel frees us to chase after godliness and growth each new year without tying our identity or worth to our own performance.

When the holiday schedule gets overwhelming, reexamining the purpose of parties and our own family’s needs can help us decide what gets our “yes” or “no.”

With the gospel as our foundation, we’re free to enjoy the extra trimmings and traditions of Christmastime as biblical wisdom and personal conscience allow.

Historical church traditions can be helpful for intentionally weaving the gospel into our homes, but we can each exercise our convictions with freedom and grace.

As we enter into joyful celebrations with our children, we can reflect God’s overflowing heart of grace and delight towards his children.

Scripture helps us cultivate hearts of thanksgiving and worship to God, even through times of trial.

Mother’s Day can be a time to mourn over what is broken, rejoice over what is good, and look forward to God’s final redemption.

Resolutions can help us change, but only God can make us new.

Celebrating abundance can make us feel our lack and loss more deeply. But even in grief, we can give thanks to the Lord.

It doesn’t take long for us to realize that our fairytale visions of marriage are just that—a fairytale. In real life, marriage tends to be much harder than we imagined. But it can also be much richer. Here’s good news for real marriages.

Maybe it's crafting cute Thanksgiving turkeys with your kids, opening envelopes on your Advent calendar, or making pancakes for birthday mornings—all families have traditions. They range from the simple to the elaborate, the every-so-often to the every-year, the super meaningful to the silly.

Sometimes traditions bring us joy. They help us reorient our hearts toward what we value most, offer us pause in the midst of life's hustle and bustle, and provide consistent signposts to think of God's faithfulness. And sometimes, they're just plain fun.

Other times, traditions cause pressure and guilt. We’re upset when we abandon the Advent calendar, annoyed we forgot to pull out books on time, or frustrated there are now turkeys glued to our tables.

Thankfully, traditions don't earn our good standing before God, measure how well we "did" the holiday season, or guarantee our kids will love Jesus. Instead, traditions are another area the gospel gives us freedom to decide what's best (and most fruitful) for our families. We can light the weekly candle for Advent, or not. We can have an Easter party, or not. We can start a tradition, or stop one.

As long as we’re living by faith in the completed work of Christ, and striving to love others well, we each have freedom for how traditions play out in our own homes.

At R|M, we want to equip you to apply the gospel to every aspect of life by being “gospel thinkers.” Because the gospel changes everything—even our traditions.

So to help you kick off this holiday season with biblical understanding, @emschumacher is explaining how to take what scripture teaches about traditions and apply it to our lives. Think of it as a tool for filtering what traditions you might want to start (or stop) in your own home. Wondering what to do with Santa? How you should engage in Halloween? If the “tooth fairy” should visit? We hope this resource helps you consider how to engage in these (and many other) traditions.

We even added discussion questions so you can talk with your spouse, podcast club, or friends at the playground. (And it has a handy printable!)