Holidays are celebrated with visuals

We often wish for a "White Christmas" and Christmas 2010 our family drove from Roswell, GA to Morganton, NC and this is what we experienced arriving at the Grandparent's home. (Nikon D3, 14-24mm, ISO 200, ƒ/2.8, 1/2500)

Turn on the radio this time of year and you are most likely to hear Bing Crosby singing White Christmas.

Many of us will watch those classic movies like: White Christmas; Miracle on 34th Street; It's a Wonderful Life; and many more that you might name.

Even tho it is just a song on the radio it still conjures up the visuals in my head.

Nativity Scenes

At our house and most of my extended family we put up Nativity Scenes of the first Christmas. This one here above is more traditional, but our family has made them at our church during Advent family events.

We had fun decorating my wife in a decorating a person competition for live Christmas tree.

Here we are creating a Advent Wreath during the family Advent event at our church.

The kids enjoyed creating their own reindeer antlers.  

This is a nativity scene we made another year at our church's family Advent event. Every year we put it out.

Why have events to make nativity scenes when you can buy ones that most likely are of better quality? The holidays are about memories. We are to remember our faith and we do things to help create new memories around these core tenants of our faith.

Our peanuts nativity scene ornament on our tree. My wife loves the peanuts and this helps her bring back memories of her childhood with her parents, siblings and friends in Sparta, New Jersey.

This was given to us by my sister whose family served as missionaries to Swaziland. 

Ornaments

We love to decorate our tree and many families do the same. Each year our family puts ornaments on together. Each person has ornaments special to them that they put on each year. This tradition is so fun.

Since our family has allergies to live trees, we now have a fake tree. When my daughter was just a toddler I had her help me with putting up the tree. She would hand me the parts and I would assemble them.

The following year my daughter came to me and said it is time for us to put up the tree. I turned and looked at my wife and she said it is now tradition.

This year we added a few new ornaments. This is one we bought at the Magical Night of Lights at Lake Lanier this year.

We also bought this turtle ornament and had all our names put on it. There is an inside family story on turtles. By the way if you look closely you can also see where our Elf on the Shelf was this day.

Each ornament on our tree has a story. So each year we assemble our stories and as we look at the tree during the holidays it will help us remember Christmas from over the years. Also, as we celebrate this year we will be creating new memories.

Two of our nutcrackers are to remember our oldest son Nelson. He is a 1st Lieutenant in the Army, so that explains the one on the left. He was in the Summerall Guards when he was at The Citadel and this is the nutcracker on the right. 

This is our son in the Afghanistan. This will be our first Christmas without him around during the holidays.

The Word became Flesh

John 1:14

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

I like this time of year because this is when I celebrate the coming of the Messiah. God became visual to us through Christ.

Every story I read about him is one that conjures those visuals. Even the parables that he told also were visual.

Just think about it, when God wants our attention he has used visuals. He knows we are wired to want to see something.

Big events are celebrated visually

Now if we use visuals to celebrate holidays to help us remember the stories of our faith and families, then shouldn't we use this medium to tell the important stories in other places?

Are you using visuals to help tell your companies story and mission?