#7 - How Pinterest Stole Christmas (Part 2) - Making Jesus Our Focus

Barbara Rainey's Top 10 Interviews

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How Pinterest Stole Christmas (Part 1) - Putting Christ First
How Pinterest Stole Christmas (Part 2) - Making Jesus Our Focus

FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript

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Making Jesus Our Focus

Guest: Barbara Rainey

From the series: How Pinterest Stole Christmas (Day 2 of 2)

Air date: December 2, 2014

Bob: When you get to December 26th, and you look back on the last couple of weeks, how will you determine whether the time leading up to Christmas was a success? Barbara Rainey says you’ve got to have your priorities right.

Barbara: Moms can look at all the things on their list—they can look at the cookies, and the Christmas cards, and the gifts, and all of that stuff—and decide, “What is really most important?” If, at the top of your list, you say, “Teaching my kids about Christ in the month of December,” some of those other things on your list might have to go. If you don’t get the cookies done, no one’s going to remember; but your kids might remember some of what they heard about Jesus. That’s worth more than any of the traditions you’re trying to keep.

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Tuesday, December 2nd. Our host is the President of FamilyLife®, Dennis Rainey, and I’m Bob Lepine. We want to do what we can do today to help out so that, when you do get to December 26th, you can look back and say, “That was a good Christmas season.” Stay tuned.

1:00

Bob: And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us on the Tuesday edition. So, is it true that you moved, years ago, out to the end of a street so you wouldn’t have to put up lights on your—[Laughter] That’s what I was told—you said, “I want to be where I don’t have to go through that every year.”

Dennis: We moved into the country, just over the hill—[Laughter] —so no one drives by our house.

Bob: We do have your wife, Barbara, joining us again on FamilyLife Today. Barbara, welcome to FamilyLife Today.

Barbara: Thanks—Bob.

Bob: We’re glad you’re joining us this week because we want to talk about how overwhelming Christmas can be / the holiday season can be—particularly, for moms—particularly, when you have kids of all ages with all kinds of priorities of their own.

2:00

This is a season of the year where, not only are the activities highlighted, but you’ve got an objective around trying to get ready for the big day that includes buying presents and decorating the home. Decorating the home is something that—I’ve been in your home at Christmas.

Dennis: Oh, my! Oh, yes—in fact, here’s what happens. [Laughter] About the first of November, she says, “I think I want you to go to the attic and pull down all of the boxes.”

Barbara: That is not true!

Dennis: Now this takes a small, load-bearing piece of equipment called a “husband” to go get the boxes.

Bob: Yes.

Dennis: It’s a piece of work at our place.

Bob: And the transformation of your home into Christmas mode—is it a full-day job to get the decorating done?

Barbara: Well, yes. If I started in the morning and went all day, it probably would; but I don’t stay that focused, so it’s pieces of several days.

Bob: So, for pieces of several days, you are going to be consumed for part of that with decorating the house.

3:00

Were you doing this when the kids were little?

Barbara: Yes.

Bob: How did you do it?!

Barbara: I let other things go because it was more important to me than other things.

Bob: What was important? Why were you decorating the house?

Barbara: I think the reason—and I did this when I was a kid too—my mother, bless her heart, was very, very generous with allowing me to express my creativity and my artistic vision for what our house should look like. She let me decorate our house when I was a kid. I set up a card table in my bedroom. I was the gift-wrapping queen of the whole house—I wrapped my own gifts / I wrapped gifts for everybody else because I wanted it to be magical—I wanted it to be beautiful. I just had this vision of what it should be like.

Bob: Now, you’re decorating everybody’s house—that’s what you’re doing! [Laughter] This whole—all of these resources you’ve been working on in Ever Thine Home®—you just want to decorate everybody’s house in the world; don’t you?

4:00

Barbara: No, I really don’t want to decorate everybody else’s house. [Laughter] I want everybody’s Christmas trees—people who are putting up Christmas trees—and I realize not everybody puts up a Christmas tree—but for those who do—I think our Christmas trees should be about Christ. That’s really what I want.

Bob: Over the last three years, you have created ornaments to put on Christmas trees. We call them Adorenaments®. The first year, you put out a set of seven ornaments that were all about the Christmas names of Christ—

Barbara: Yes.

Bob: —from Luke, Chapter 2, and from Isaiah, Chapter 9. Then, last year, the royal names. Those were the shapes of crowns.

Barbara: Correct.

Bob: And you’ve got a third set of ornaments / seven ornaments this year. These are the Savior names. Where did you come up with the list of seven Savior names?

Barbara: You know, choosing seven is tough because there are some that can go both ways.

Bob: Right.

Barbara: But I just started—as I’ve been reading through the Bible, every time I see a name of Christ, whether in the Old Testament or in the New, I’ve just got this running list—I’ve been throwing them on there.

5:00

Then I’ll look at it and kind of go, “Okay, which ones are…?”—a...