Keep Christmas Merry

The Christmas season is often filled with the rush of buying gifts, wrapping presents, and with the many other tasks like writing greeting cards, baking cookies, or creating an extravagant meal. These are the temporal things that will keep us busy, consume our time, and will frustrate us. When Christmas gatherings occur, it’s a blur of activities that are over and done within a matter of a few hours. Then what? Sitting among the crumpled colored paper and discarded boxes, we sigh and often feel let down, depressed, and deflated. We may think, “Is that all there is?” Is this what the Christmas season is all about…or is there more?

Celebrating Christmas isn’t about the lighted and decorated tree in the center of the living room nor is it about the stockings on the mantle of the fireplace. It’s not about Santa, the elf on the shelf, or a sleigh and reindeer. The Grinch was close to finding the true meaning of Christmas, yet missed it by a mile. He recognized that Christmas was so much more than food, frolic, and favors, but didn’t look far enough for the reason. Perhaps the celebrants of Whoville didn’t know the real reason either.

There was no mention of the birth of the Christ child, no mention of the baby Jesus. There was no mention of the angels announcing the virgin’s conception of the prophesied Messiah. There was no mention of the shepherds being directed to visit this special child that was swaddled and lying in a manger, no mention of the heavenly omen of the star that guided the magi to Bethlehem seeking this newborn King of kings.

Television renditions of Christmas have purposefully removed and avoided any mention of the Christ child’s birth, yet they invoke his holy title in each Christmas story that they create. They use only his title without sharing anything else about this Holy Child who is God and yet willingly took on the form of a human. God loves us so much that he sent his only begotten Son to understand the trails and temptations of mankind and yet he remained sinless. He came to suffer and to die; carrying all of our sins to the cross at Calvary that mankind could be redeemed from sin’s curse and to provide a way to heaven and to dwell eternally. This was the ultimate Christmas gift. This is reason for the joy of the season. This is the true blessing of Christmas.

Merry Christmas to all of my readers and thank you for your supportive comments.