Are you looking for Thanksgiving stories with a Christian message? If so, check out Thanksgiving and Pilgrim Stories at Joyful Heart Renewal Ministries, the web ministry of Dr. Ralph Wilson. Many webservants may be familiar with Dr. Ralph through his work as one of the Internet’s leading experts on small business marketing and e-commerce. His Web Marketing Today web site and newsletter has 135,000 subscribers.

Wilson is also an ordained minister and his Joyful Heart ministry offers wonderful Christian reflections on major holidays. His Christmas site has long been on our list of favorite links, and Ralph also has a page of Christian Thanksgiving articles. These include “How the Pilgrims Got their Name,” which traces the history of the early Separatists from England to the New World, and “Cranberry Sauce and Pumpkin Pie,” an essay on thanking God on Thanksgiving day. We’re confident you’ll be blessed!

One of my favorite Advent activities, going back to my childhood, is the Advent Calendar. In our family we used to reveal the day’s Advent calendar before dinner each night. The Advent Calendar has successfully made the leap to Cyberspace, and we link to some of the most popular ones on our Advent Calendars page.

The TeachingMOM Advent Calendar is an outstanding example of how a Web-based Advent calendar can be a great resource for family worship. Each day’s entry features an abundance of goodies. Here’s how TeachingMom’s Leigh Ann describes it:

Every day on the TeachingMOM Advent Calendar is full of goodies to help you and your family create some wonderful traditions this Advent and Christmas, as well as have some good old-fashioned fun! You’ll probably learn a few interesting facts about the season as well. We’ve collected some of the best on the net – and your public library! – for you all in one convenient spot. But don’t feel that you should be doing everything listed on each day! The Advent Calendar was made to be used over again for as many years as you can get something out of it.

Make a point of visiting this excellent Advent resource today!

I’m tracking Christ-centered Advent and Christmas blogs, and have found that many of them are being written by Christian homeschooling moms who are also pursuing Internet writing ministries. That includes Everyday Mommy, an engaging blog penned by Jules, a full-time Mom and freelance graphic designer.

The Everyday Mommy blog includes a “Keep Christ in Christmas” section that reinforces the many ways, large and small, that we can maintain our focus on the real “reason for the season.” Jules also offers a beautiful “Keep Christ in Christmas” graphic badge for other bloggers to share the sentiment and spread the Message. Great stuff, and definitely worth a visit, bookmark and/or RSS subscription.

Today we continue our review of some of the most useful Christmas sites. Few Christ-centered holiday sites can match the breadth of A Holy Christmas, a comprehensive directory created by Richard and Charlene Fairchild as part of the Kir-Shalom Christian web ministry.

Richard is a United Church of Canada ordained minister serving the St. Andrew’s Pastoral Charge full time in Golden, British Columbia. Charlene is a retired nurse who does contract website design and copywriting for a small web design team, Bits & Bytes Computing. The Fairchilds offer many resources they have developed themselves, as well as an abundance of categorized links, including articles on holiday stress as well as many celebratory links and even Christmas odds and ends. You’ll find much to explore at A Holy Christmas.

We’ll be featuring some of our favorite Christian Christmas links on the blog, and I wanted to start with one that predates Christmas In Cyberspace. When I first began searching for Christ-centered holiday sites for our directory back in 1996, one of the first sites I found was A Top Ten Christmas at Peggie’s Place, created by Peggie Bohanon of Springfield, Mo. Peggie would later become the editor of the Internet for Christians newsletter, which was a great resource for Christian links.

Peggie describes her site as “The most fun Christian home on the World Wide Web!” This inviting and comprehensive site features pages dedicated to Christmas devotionals and an impressive list of Christmas links, as well as several of Peggie’s famous Top 10 lists. Peggie also now has a Peggie’s Place blog at Blogger. All are worthy resources.

The Christmas In Cyberspace site has always had a “No Santa Sites” policy. This approach, which is sometimes misunderstood, is designed to distinguish our site from the many secular and commercial sites that feature Santa but leave out Jesus entirely. We wanted to set apart a site for those seeking Christ-centered information about Christmas and Advent traditions and practices.

While the modern Santa Claus has become a commercial icon, the tradition has its origins in the Christian church, with a real person. That’s why I heartily recommend the St. Nicholas Center, a site devoted to “Discovering The Truth About Santa Claus” and highlighting the Christian origins of St. Nicholas, the Bishop of Myra. Here’s a description of the site’s mission and its importance:

St. Nicholas, lover of the poor and patron saint of children, is a model of how Christians are meant to live. As priest and bishop, Nicholas put Jesus Christ at the center of his life and ministry. His concern for children and others in need or danger expressed a love for God which points toward Jesus, the source of true caring and compassion. Embracing St. Nicholas customs can help recover the true center of Christmas – the birth of Jesus. Understanding St. Nicholas as the original and true holiday gift-giver also helps shift focus to giving rather than getting, compassion rather than consumption, need rather than greed. This can help restore balance to increasingly materialistic and stress-filled Advent and Christmas seasons.

Learn more at the St. Nicholas Center web site, which includes an area for kids with games and activities.

I’ve recently discovered several blogs dedicated to Christmas and Advent. I didn’t see any last year, so this is great news. One is Advent for Evangelicals, a new blog written by Lindsey from Enjoy The Journey. A recent post provided a complete guide to making your own Advent wreath. Here’s Lindsey’s description of her blog and its mission:

This blog is a spot on the web where I hope to encourage other evangelical Christians to celebrate the Advent season…to worship His coming in beauty and spirit!

O Night Divine is a team blog by a group of six Catholic homeschooling moms, and is described simply as a “blog devoted to the celebration of Christmas.” Some early posts deal with decorating for Advent and having an organized Christmas.

Know of any other Christ-centered Advent or Christmas blogs? If so, please email us and we may feature them in a future post. If you’re looking for ideas for creating a meaningful Advent for your family, you’ll want to check out both these blogs.