Equipped for Impact
A podcast designed to equip parents to disciple the next generation to stand firm in their faith and influence the world for Christ. Each episode explores practical questions and cultural issues through a Biblical worldview, providing the wisdom and tools needed to guide children toward a Christ-centered life.
Presented by: Wayne Christian School- A Christ-centered community school whose mission is to assist parents and churches in the education of their children from a biblical worldview to impact their world for Christ.
Equipped for Impact
Merry Christmas From Equipped for Impact
We swap stories about the small rituals that make Christmas warm and Christ-centered, from cinnamon rolls and pajamas to St. Nicholas shoes and Mexican Posadas. We share practical tech boundaries, a love for simple meals, and why repetition turns moments into memory.
• swapping Christmas traditions that keep Christ at the center
• cinnamon rolls rising while gifts are opened
• pajamas on Christmas Eve as a belonging cue
• German St. Nicholas Day with shoes on 6 December
• Mexican Posadas and Christmas Eve family time
• practical tech boundaries for presence over noise
• Chinese food as a restful Christmas night ritual
• KFC in Japan as a lesson in cultural tradition
• light family movies as memory-makers
• sign-off for break and promise of new content
Podcast at WayneChristian.org
We will get you a wonderful Equipped for Impact sticker as a Christmas gift from us
If you know me personally, send me a text message to tell me that you listen to this episode on Christmas Day
Send any questions you want answered to podcast@waynechristian.org
This podcast is presented by Wayne Christian School- A Christ-centered community school whose mission is to assist parents and churches in the education of their children from a biblical worldview to impact their world for Christ. You can learn more at waynechristian.org
Welcome to Equipped for Impact, the podcast designed to assist Christian parents, leaders, and educators to raise up the next generation, to stand firm in their faith, and influence the world for Christ. We're your hosts. I'm Nate. And I'm Lewis. And we're glad you're here with us today on Christmas Day. If you are listening the day this is released, it is Christmas. It is Christmas Day. Merry Christmas, Lewis. Merry Christmas, Nate.
SPEAKER_00:And if you are listening to this on Christmas Day, shoot us an email. Yes, let us know. We have some nice little swag we want to get to you. That's right. But you got it, but the email has to be dated Christmas. Christmas Day. Yeah.
Nate:And you have to tell us that you listen to us on Christmas Day. Podcast at WayneChristian.org. We will not look at it until after New Year's probably because we log off over the Christmas break. But uh we will get it and we will get you a wonderful equipped for impact sticker as a Christmas gift from us.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And if you know me personally, send me a text message to tell me that you listen to this episode on Christmas Day. There you go. And it will brighten my Christmas day. It'll make me very happy.
Nate:It'll probably brighten my day after Christmas because my phone will be on Do Not Disturb. I'm just I'm one of those. But how do your like how do the like how do the grandparents reach the kids if it's on Do Not Disturb? Uh well we kind of know. Okay. And so then you FaceTime and use the iPad and stuff like that. Like certain people get through. Okay. You can go back and listen to our tech episode about that.
SPEAKER_00:Will I be able to get through if I text you on Christmas Day? Probably not.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Fair enough. Fair enough.
Nate:Fair enough. No, it might. I would probably see it eventually.
SPEAKER_00:Merry Christmas, everybody. I hope that you're enjoying. And if you got an Alexa for Christmas, um, Alexa, go to max volume. Um Alexa, turn on the Christmas tree.
Nate:No, okay, so we went we real quick, we're not gonna do a full episode. Just a quick uh you know, sharing of some Christmas traditions. I keep saying Thanksgiving. I don't know why. Did you miss Thanksgiving? Like, I did not know. Well, sort of. Our Thanksgiving week was crazy.
SPEAKER_00:I remember I remember you telling me it was crazy.
Nate:But um so Christmas traditions. So for us, right? Um it's always cinnamon rolls. Yeah. We gotta have the cinnamon rolls. Okay. Typically, they're gonna be homemade. Homemade. That was a thing that my mom did for years.
SPEAKER_00:Do you make them or does your wife make them?
Nate:Uh it's a team effort. So you both team up on the case. It's a team effort. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You gotta make you gotta prep them the night before uh because then while you're opening presents, you gotta pull them out so they rise and then you gotta bake them. Yeah, that's really cool. There you go. So cr cinnamon rolls are a big part of our Christmas.
SPEAKER_00:So we do cinnamon rolls on Christmas Day as well. Uh we don't make them from scratch. We have uh Pillsbury Doughboy ones. Grands. Uh you gotta have the grands. Yeah, and we've been eating ones. And we've been eating them uh ever since ever since my wife and I got got married. We actually so in um in our family, we do a Christmas Eve pajama gift, and so we all open Christmas pajamas on Christmas Eve, and then we wear them that night to bed. We go to sleep in the matching. Are you guys all are you a matching family? We used to be. We're not so much anymore. Okay. But but there was a time when teenage daughters don't want to match. No, no, no. I think I think um I think it just became harder for us to find like like matching for everybody that like fit, you know. And so um but some years it still is. And so we do that, and then we go to bed, and then we wake up, and so then we do the cinnamon rolls, um and then we open up gifts in the pajamas that we wore to to bed the the night before. And so that's the same thing.
Nate:So we do the pajamas because the the German side of the family, you've got St. Nicholas Day is actually December 6th. Uh-huh. So St. Nicholas brings pajamas on December 6th, so that they've got all December in their Christmas PJs.
SPEAKER_00:Do you incorporate some German traditions into your family?
Nate:Yeah. Yeah. That would be the biggest one. Okay, right. Because it's shoes, not a stocking. Yeah. And it's St. Nicholas, not Santa Claus. Yeah, cool. You know, stuff like that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So we do too. So we have some of the Mexican traditions that are part of So for us. Feliz Navidad. Feliz Navidad. So on Christmas Eve, we always do something with my mom because in the Mexican culture, Christmas Eve is the big It's the big night. It's the big night, right? So that's when you have the um we we don't do them anymore, but like the Posadas is is is what they're called, and kind of like the big thing that happens on Christmas Eve. In fact, um, growing up, we spent a lot of Christmas holidays in Mexico, and we would do some of the Christmas Eve Posadas. Uh we don't anymore. Um, but uh that was that that was cool growing up. And so that that's kind of our tradition.
Nate:Yeah, there you go, there you go. Yeah, we used to always wait, we'd wake up and then like you had to wait until you got the green light from the parents, and we'd run down the hallway to go see what was in the stockings and all of that. And so we don't have a very long hallway in our house, but we still do that with the girls. Like they they have to wait and then and then we we let them go and they run into the living room.
SPEAKER_00:And then it becomes a big thing.
Nate:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Do you guys eat on Christmas Day? Like d does your family come together and eat Christmas Day?
Nate:Christmas dinner. Christmas dinner. Christmas dinner, yeah. Cool. Christmas Eve is normally just like finishing up or trying to eat as much junk food as we can, all the cookies that have accumulated over the weeks and getting all that stuff, and then you've got your big Christmas dinner. Okay. What time do you guys normally eat? Uh probably five. Five o'clock, okay. It kind of fluctuates. Okay. It depends where we are.
SPEAKER_00:Cool. We we do Christmas night, so after like all of the like calling people, visiting people, seeing things. All the FaceTimes. Uh we by accident, when my wife and I got married, we stumbled across the reality that there are no restaurants open on Christmas Day.
Nate:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:Um, and so at the time we lived in Deep Run, and so we drove into Kinston and there was nothing, like nothing open, no McDonald's, no Burger King, nothing. Except for a Chinese restaurant. Uh like a fast, you know, like uh one of those walk-in, you know, and so we ordered some Chinese food, brought it home, and for we'll be married 20 years this June. Um we do Chinese food every Christmas night. Wow. Uh and we do that with our girls, and it's and we just sit around and eat Chinese food.
Nate:Somebody was telling me um just today, because third grade here at our school does Christmas around the world. Yeah, and they were researching in Japan the big Christmas Day meal is KFC. And like somehow, because I guess they work. Yeah. And somehow KFC did a big marketing campaign in the 80s of like, hey, eat KFC on Christmas. Yeah. And so now like people have to pre-order months in advance to get their KFC to bring home. It was like, if you want to learn marketing, KFC, Japanese KFC apparently knows how to do it.
SPEAKER_00:That is wild. So so they're ordering like extra crispy and mass potatoes and gravy, and like I'm ordering like beef lobain, chicken fried rice from like new China Fund. Yeah, there you go. So there you go. But yeah, so so we do that, we eat it, and then last year we introduced that movie, um, A Christmas Story. Oh the old movie. Yeah, we we we had never seen it.
Nate:Is that the you're gonna poke your or shoot your eye out?
SPEAKER_00:I think it is that movie. It's the one where the kid gets his tongue stuck on the on the on the pole.
Nate:So uh well, there you go. We wouldn't know that in North Carolina because it never gets cold enough for you to like get your stomach.
SPEAKER_00:Except for earlier this week, earlier this week, the windshow was one degree.
Nate:One degree. There's some kids here that I don't think I've ever seen that temperature before. Unless they were looking Celsius. So well, everybody, thank you guys for spending a couple of minutes with us on Christmas Day or afterwards. Yeah. Maybe uh we're gonna sign off for the Christmas break, and we'll be back with you guys after New Year's with some new content um to help you keep leading the next generation to stand firm in their faith and impact the world for Christ. Thank you guys and Merry Christmas.
SPEAKER_00:Merry Christmas.
