Bah Humbug!
I wish they would skip Christmas and go right from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day and the football games.
Christmas is a bust. The retailers, corporations, airlines, malls and online marketers have put the grinch in Christmas for me.
Groups such as the ACLU, the Freedom from Religion Foundation, and the Americans for the Separation of Church and State and other godless groups engage in all-out assaults on Christmas. Their goal: take Christ out of Christmas. Some well-meaning churches wind up in court because they display nativity scenes. They rail against anything Jesus. They sanitize the true purpose of worship and praise.
Nowadays Christmas seems to be just a holiday not unlike Lincoln’s birthday or Groundhog Day. Christmas in our day is nothing more than a couple of weeks each year to make money. Entire industries depend on the month of December to determine their profits for the year. Am I against capitalism? Certainly not. It is the hallmark of our society. It is a way of doing business envied by countries around the world.ties
But capitalism, or our way of doing business, has helped destroy Christmas. I know: churches still have Christmas programs and churches declare the true meaning of Christmas. Pastors craft wonderful messages that poignantly remind us that the coming of our Savior is the reason for the season. My blogging friends compose wonderful posts about celebrating the birth of our Savior.
And for families this time of year also provides a good excuse for families to gather for fellowship and food. We see relatives we only speak to once a year. Some family black sheep seem civil, even cordial, at those once-a-year get-togethers. We bake cookies and pies and roast turkeys and fix cranberry sauce, binge and then snack all day. Then we complain about how bad we feel.
But where is Jesus? He’s not in Christmas as I see it. At least He’s not in Christmas the way we “celebrate” it today. I’m tired of the decorations and the clatter and the pretty wrapped packages and the eggnog and the traffic and the cookies and the parties and the boring relatives and the expectations and the masks people wear and the “happy holidays” and the pretense and the phony well-wishers.
Do you want to know how I want to celebrate Christmas? I want to go to those fields where the shepherds were staying. It was peaceful there that night. The sheep were bedded down. The shepherds were minding their own business. Probably engaged in quiet conversation about their sheep and their day and their plans for tomorrow.
I want to be startled by the angel telling me that this night my Savior is born, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. I want to be awed by the sky suddenly ablaze with thousands, maybe millions, of angels praising God and singing. I want to walk with those shepherds into Bethlehem following that star. I want to find that lowly manger and Mary and Joseph. I want to behold that sweet precious baby. I want to gaze upon that teenage girl who just delivered the child that will one day deliver her. I want to spend my entire night just being with Jesus, marveling in His presence. Leaning over to watch Him sleep.
There is no sound, just my Savior breathing.
It is peace that passeth all understanding.
It is the peace this beautiful child will one day bring to me.
It is my perfect peace.
It is heavenly peace.
It is my Christmas.
For His Glory 
I appreciate how you put this. In my own reflection, I wrote: this:https://moreenigma.wordpress.com/2015/11/29/where-did-christmas-go/
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I hear your frustration, Steven. You’re surely not alone in longing for His kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. Here is how I handle December. Yesterday, Dec 1st, I purposed that the Prince of Peace would be present in my heart and mind all month. I’m focusing on Him, every day so that when I’m out and about, smiling as I shop, I desire to be a vessel of peace amidst a noisy, stressed world. As I see it, my job is to transmit my portion of heavenly peace that passes understanding. So go out and be His hands and feet, brother! 😉
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Kathryn, thank you so much for your heartfelt thoughts and your encouragement. If you don’t mild, I’d like to post this tomorrow as part of a post on my blog. Thank you so much for sharing. God bless.
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Feel free. I’m honored. Will you kindly link to my blog?
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For a review and commentary regarding the secular factors of the Christmas festival go to http://www.christianityetc.org/christmas.php
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Love these thoughts, Bob. Thank you for sharing. “Christmas is a hodgepodge of celebrations, personal behaviors and attitudes, rituals of worship, the selling and buying of a lot of gifts, and public and private gatherings that are brought together from ancient pagan festivals, a variety of ethnic traditions, the biblical stories of Jesus’ birth, historic religious traditions and practices and beliefs, and secular business strategies that are all focused around December 25th.
There is a lot of personal and collective controversial opinion regarding whether or not Christmas is a Christian holiday, a pagan festival that should be rejected by Christians and ignored by enlightened citizens of the modern world, a set of nice stories and traditions about love and giving that are worthy of being emphasized once a year, or just a very agressive business strategy to get millions of people to buy and give a lot of goods.” I want to publish these tomorrow with a link back to your post.
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