Christmas Is Coming

Thanksgiving is now history and the start of the official Christmas season has begun. This year seems to be going by even more quickly than the previous one. I guess time does fly the older one gets.

This past Saturday, the Christmas decorations emerged from the garage, storage shed and other various creative storage spots we have tried to find. Last year, I had trouble getting in to the whole decoration scene, but this year, for some reason, I actually did a little more than I have the past few years. I think I am developing a sense of nostalgia and wish that we had, over the years, developed more traditions in our family. Growing up, my parents were the prime example of understated enthusiasm about pretty much everything. Don't get me wrong, I had a great childhood with great memories, but everything at our house was pretty low key. Now, I have no desire to have the holidays turn in to a stressful, can't-get- everything-done-that-we-always-do event, but I'm just actually really looking forward to the season this year. There is just something nice about sitting in your living room to the glow of Christmas tree lights with the soundtrack from the Charlie Brown Christmas playing in the background. Now, if only there was some gently falling snow...

Anyway...I guess my prayer for this year is to really enjoy each family moment that we can have and to focus more on the reason we celebrate this season in the first place. For so many people complaints about people not being able to say "Merry Christmas" because of the religious significance are the topic of conversation. My question is, for most of us, do we really even celebrate Christmas because of the religious significance or is it just another holiday where we buy gifts, get grumpy, overspend and over eat? I don't want to be a part of that holiday. I want to celebrate the fact that a young couple was obedient to God, Christ left heaven and came to earth in a humble way because He actually cared about all of us and because of that, we can have peace of mind and joy in our hearts and can actually pass that on to the rest of the world. Now that is something worth celebrating.

Remembering the hope that we all can have -
JAH