Bible Verse Clues: A Christmas Tradition

We celebrated Belle’s first Christmas with dear friends. And that was the year they introduced us to one of their beloved family traditions. A few years later we had adopted it as our own!

On most main gifts under the tree (for both kids and adults) we write a Bible reference (chapter and verse) that serves as a clue. Sometimes the hint is obvious, sometimes obscure. It extends the fun of gift-opening, and generally leaves us in fits of laughter at various points.

The example we’ve always used when people ask about how it works came from our friends. They once labelled a gift with Isaiah 40:4. That verse reads: Rough places will be made smooth. The gift? A set of razors.

So before people open a gift, they check to see if it has a Bible reference. If so, they find the passage of Scripture and read the verse out loud to everyone in the room. (Some adults use digital devices; I’m old school and prefer to flip paper pages.)

We don’t sit and ponder the clue for long – usually just a few seconds – but it adds to the fun of the morning. Here are some of the verses I used this year. (Belle labelled most of her gifts with verses and John did too – so there were LOTS more verses than the ones I’m listing below.)

• Indy’s mug. Matthew 20:23a – Jesus said to them, “You will indeed drink from my cup.” [Fairly obvious it’s going to be a drinking vessel of some kind.]
• Indy’s Guinness Book of World Records book. 1 Samuel 17:4 – Then Goliath, a Philistine champion from Gath, came out of the Philistine ranks to face the forces of Israel. He was over nine feet tall!” and Genesis 5:27 – Altogether, Methuselah lived a total of 969 years, and then he died. [A cryptic way of highlighting Biblical characters with impressive records.]
• Indy’s harmonica. Psalm 100:1 – Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth. [Music is an obvious thought; because of the size of the box, Belle suspected it was a harmonica.]
• Indy’s Levi’s sweater. Genesis 29:34 – “Now this time my husband will be attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.” Therefore his name was called Levi.

• Belle’s Air Jordan sneakers: Luke 6:23a – Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy. and Exodus 24:10 – Under his feet was something like a pavement made out of sapphire as clear and blue as the sky itself. [She guessed not only that it was sneakers, but that it was Air Jordan’s in University Blue. The logo features someone jumping, and then the second verse talks about feet – which fit into sneakers – and the colour blue!]
• Belle’s dishwasher dirty/clean sign: Matt 23: 26 – First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. [Zero chance she was going to figure this out, but it fit the gift perfectly!]
• Belle’s cactus candles: Ezekiel 28:24a – The house of Israel shall no longer find a pricking brier or a piercing thorn among all their neighbors. [Again, there was no chance she was going to figure this out, but she when she opened the present she was very excited to get a replacement for the broken candle.]
• Belle’s pencil set. Jeremiah 30:2b – Write in a book all the words I have spoken to you. [I think she guessed it was a notebook, but you can see how a pencil set also fits the clue…]
• Belle’s Malibu sweater. Jonah 4:8a – When the sun came up God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah’s head so that he became faint. [Fairly obscure, but I figured Malibu is hot…though it is in the west. It was the best I could do.]
• Belle’s Telestrations game. Deut 28:28 – The Lord will make you lose your mind. He will make you blind. You won’t know what’s going on. [This was a funny and relatively accurate – albeit cryptic – description of playing Telestrations.]
• Belle’s gnome. Luke 19:3 – He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. [Makes sense once you open the gift, but her mind didn’t immediately jump to gnome.]

• John’s glass cleaning kit. 1 Corinthians 13:12 – Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.
• John’s screwdriver set. 1 Corinthians 15:58a – be steadfast, immovable and Exodus 31:5 – to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts. [A bit of a stretch, but funnily enough, they don’t write explicitly about screwdrivers in the Bible so, again, this was the best I could come up with.]
• Reading light for my mom. Matthew 5:16 – Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
• Candle for my brother. Matthew 25:7 – …when they were awakened, all of them trimmed their wicks. In other words, they made the most of whatever lamp they had.

Your turn.

• Do you have any gift-opening traditions in your house?
• What’s your favourite verse/gift combo above?

Header photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash