For the Strength of Youth
A Christmas Tradition—Change
For the Strength of Youth December 2025

A Christmas Tradition—Change

By David A. Edwards

Church Magazines

We can do—and be—something different each Christmas and become more like the Savior.

Scrooge with Tiny Tim

Frederick Barnard via Getty Images

For many people, Christmastime is full of traditions—things they do more or less the same every year. Some may even say it just doesn’t feel like Christmas unless they do certain things. Individuals, families, nations, and entire cultures have Christmas traditions.

Good traditions can give us feelings of comfort and belonging. But Christmas can—and should—also be a time to reflect on what we should not do the same in our lives. It can help us change through Jesus Christ.

A Season of Change

In 1843, the British author Charles Dickens wrote his classic story A Christmas Carol. It’s about an old man named Ebenezer Scrooge, who doesn’t care about anyone or anything as much as his money. To show just how miserable a person Scrooge is, Dickens portrays him as scoffing at Christmas and anyone who wants to celebrate it. Then, at Christmas, he’s visited during the night by spirits who show him his Christmases in the past, present, and future. These visions cause him to reflect on his life, on the state of his soul, as well as on his relationships with other people. He vows to change—and he does. The new, better Scrooge is happier and blesses others.

Elder Gerrit W. Gong of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles once talked about this story and said:

Gerrit W. Gong

“This Christmas, perhaps we can receive—and offer—Jesus Christ’s precious gifts of change and repentance, of forgiving and forgetting, of giving those gifts to others and ourselves.

“Let us make peace with the past year. Let go of the emotional angst and noise, the frictions and annoyances that clutter our lives. May we grant each other our new possibilities instead of fixating on our past limitations. Let’s give the new Scrooge in each of us a chance to change.

“Our Savior came at Christmas to liberate the captives—and not only those in prison. He can free us from the ghosts of our pasts, unshackle us from the regrets of our and others’ sins. He can redeem us from our self-centered, selfish selves through rebirth in Him.”

Jesus Christ

Focus on Joy, by Michael Malm

What Can I Change?

You don’t have to be as bad as Scrooge was to let Christmas change you for the better. So, how can each of us make Christmas a time of renewal and change? Here are just a few ideas to start with:

  • Choose an attribute of the Savior to focus on each Christmas. You can study a characteristic of Jesus Christ at Christmastime and try to follow His example better. For help, you might look at Preach My Gospel: A Guide to Sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ, chapter 6.

  • Add a Christ-centered tradition. If you feel your Christmas celebration needs more meaning, try adding a tradition that helps you focus more on Jesus Christ. It doesn’t have to be fancy. You could listen to more Christ-centered music, serve someone in your family, invite friends to church for the Christmas sacrament meeting, or do a Nativity craft project.

  • Tweak a tradition for the better. To make a small improvement to your traditional activities, you could include someone new or add a Christ-centered element to it.

  • Say no to a tradition or invitation if you feel stressed. If you feel like your December calendar is getting filled up with wall-to-wall activities and you don’t have time to think about the Savior or spend time with loved ones the way you want to, don’t feel bad about dropping an activity.

You too can be like the new Scrooge: “It was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well.” You can keep Christmas well by choosing to draw closer to Heavenly Father and the Savior in some way each year.