Christmas
I love Christmas! I love it all:
I love having a Christmas tree.
When my husband and I got married, our first tree had a few little ornaments and I decided to add to our collection each year by just buying a few new ones. Then when we had children, I gave them new ornaments each year so they would have a collection to take with them when they left home. So, decorating the tree is a trip down memory lane ~ "OH remember this one...I love the little church mouse ornament...here's my Santa on a reindeer!"
I love the lights on houses, I love the scent of spices, the scent of pine trees. I love the baking! I love the excitement. I love the frantic rush to finish the wrapping -- I never finish before Christmas Eve and year after year I have spent the wee hours of the morning getting the finishing touches finished, falling into bed for what seems like a couple of winks before there is a knock at our door and the voice of one of the children saying,
"Can we see if Santa came?"
You see, Santa doesn't bring everything ... he only brings one gift. The rest of the gifts are from family. And he is a very busy guy so he never wraps his gift. The Santa Gift is the one surprise, unwrapped gift sitting by each person's stocking. We always go in together so my husband and I can see the reactions when the kids see their "Santa presents and stockings. Then when the Santa Gift has been oooh'd and ahhhh'd over, and stockings have been emptied, we sit in a circle, pass out the family gifts and take turns going around the circle from the youngest to the oldest, with each person opening one gift at a time until all the gifts are open. It is slow and very personal. We all get to see and enjoy the reaction to each gift.
I love it all.
And for me -- even with all the shopping and decorating and crazy-busy-kind-of-franticness -- Christmas is not about commercialism. Christmas is about Jesus! Christmas is about the wonder of the fact that Jesus came and became a man ~ that he was really born in Bethlehem, that angels sang to shepherds, that wise men came with gifts.
But invariably there are those who bemoan the season ~ they hate the commercialism and the hype. I get that I suppose. Usually it is the Christians that I know who gripe, often, the loudest. They hate the "spend, spend, spend" push. They hate the greed. There is a lot of controversy about Santa. And invariably...usually as part of an argument for "why do we do all this Christmas stuff anyway?" ... I hear someone say, "After all, Jesus wasn't really BORN in December!" As if that makes all we do at best a farce, and at worst a sacrilege. So I want to tackle some Christmas things in the next few blogs.
~ Was Jesus born December 25th? And if not (OK...the answer is 'He was NOT!) when was he born, and why IS Christmas celebrated in December? Why do we do things like bring trees into our houses? What about Santa? What do we know about Christmas? Should Christians do all the 'Christmas stuff' ... and if so, why?? Be warned. I am extremely -- as you can probably tell from this blog -- PRO-CHRISTMAS. So my blogs this Advent are going to be "Lets do Christmas -- ON PURPOSE!"
I love having a Christmas tree.
When my husband and I got married, our first tree had a few little ornaments and I decided to add to our collection each year by just buying a few new ones. Then when we had children, I gave them new ornaments each year so they would have a collection to take with them when they left home. So, decorating the tree is a trip down memory lane ~ "OH remember this one...I love the little church mouse ornament...here's my Santa on a reindeer!"
I love the lights on houses, I love the scent of spices, the scent of pine trees. I love the baking! I love the excitement. I love the frantic rush to finish the wrapping -- I never finish before Christmas Eve and year after year I have spent the wee hours of the morning getting the finishing touches finished, falling into bed for what seems like a couple of winks before there is a knock at our door and the voice of one of the children saying,
"Can we see if Santa came?"
You see, Santa doesn't bring everything ... he only brings one gift. The rest of the gifts are from family. And he is a very busy guy so he never wraps his gift. The Santa Gift is the one surprise, unwrapped gift sitting by each person's stocking. We always go in together so my husband and I can see the reactions when the kids see their "Santa presents and stockings. Then when the Santa Gift has been oooh'd and ahhhh'd over, and stockings have been emptied, we sit in a circle, pass out the family gifts and take turns going around the circle from the youngest to the oldest, with each person opening one gift at a time until all the gifts are open. It is slow and very personal. We all get to see and enjoy the reaction to each gift.
I love it all.
And for me -- even with all the shopping and decorating and crazy-busy-kind-of-franticness -- Christmas is not about commercialism. Christmas is about Jesus! Christmas is about the wonder of the fact that Jesus came and became a man ~ that he was really born in Bethlehem, that angels sang to shepherds, that wise men came with gifts.
But invariably there are those who bemoan the season ~ they hate the commercialism and the hype. I get that I suppose. Usually it is the Christians that I know who gripe, often, the loudest. They hate the "spend, spend, spend" push. They hate the greed. There is a lot of controversy about Santa. And invariably...usually as part of an argument for "why do we do all this Christmas stuff anyway?" ... I hear someone say, "After all, Jesus wasn't really BORN in December!" As if that makes all we do at best a farce, and at worst a sacrilege. So I want to tackle some Christmas things in the next few blogs.
~ Was Jesus born December 25th? And if not (OK...the answer is 'He was NOT!) when was he born, and why IS Christmas celebrated in December? Why do we do things like bring trees into our houses? What about Santa? What do we know about Christmas? Should Christians do all the 'Christmas stuff' ... and if so, why?? Be warned. I am extremely -- as you can probably tell from this blog -- PRO-CHRISTMAS. So my blogs this Advent are going to be "Lets do Christmas -- ON PURPOSE!"
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