Reclaiming Christmas

I have always loved Christmas! And for the sake of this blog I am going to pretend that the beginning of my love started after my teen years so that we can just skim over the fact that I was a horrible teenager and was unpleasable just for the sake of being a butt…

But even as an adult I have found myself let down on Christmas morning and after years of trying to put it into words I’m going to give it a go, but also have total sympathy for the kids and their attitudes on Christmas morning after having connected some dots in my own head. Although I must say, I have some amazing kiddos and they are grateful. They may have suffered some of the same let downs and attitudes but over the last few days, there have been tons of love you’s and random thank you’s as they dive deeper into their gifts.

2 big winners at our house: I got mom something beautiful and personalized. I gave it to her before Christmas because to me Christmas morning is for the kids and I wanted this to be special…she loved it and she cried. My niece also gave a special gift to her little brother and he (a 9 year old) has been treating it like fine china, it was very personal and special to him.

The stores are in it for the money and so they push the advertising and marketing and we have bought into the whole more is better, instead of it’s the thought that counts. I know that I only buy the kids stuff for their birthdays and Christmas and so I probably go overboard. Probably they should get a new toy or something in between times and not just all crammed together…I will continue to ponder this.

But there is such joy in spending time and giving a gift that is only for that person. I started by saying that I love Christmas…what I love is spending the special time with my family. Even when we lived here we would stay at my parents house over the holidays (even though we live 15 minutes away) and it’s because I think that’s when all the awesome visiting happens and the really great memories are created. I love the decorations, but not so overboard that it totally stresses out the season. And to me the season is about family. We celebrate the birth of our Lord at this time and that is always part of the celebration, but the visiting and the conversations that stem from that are where it’s at for me. And time spent in the kitchen taking time to make special treats…what I don’t like is this feeling that I have to buy something for everyone that I come in contact with. When did it become law that gifts should be left in your mailbox and a tip given to delivery folks? When did it become something just about getting?

While gifts is not my love language…I do love to give gifts. But only when I find something that truly is designed for someone that I love. I don’t like to just spend money just to spend money. My love language is quality time, so when I receive a gift that is truly personalized I treasure it deep in my heart, because it means that the giver took the time to know me. And I think most of us want to be known. We don’t want to be cookie cutters…

I think in the commercializing and overspending of Christmas that we have lost the meaning of gift giving. It should be a joy to give something special to someone special and to receive something special from someone special. But we have created insatiable monsters that wake up on Christmas morning to devour as many gifts as possible. I want to focus more on giving something that makes the heart soar with love and gratitude.

It’s not really about the money, because there are so many deals to be had, it’s about the amount of gifts and the focus of the gifts. I want to get back to personalized gifts and this year we made a good start, and I plan to build on it over the coming year and do much better next year and the years to come…

Ponderings of the season...

You know...this is the time of year where you start seeing all the bandwagons come out loud and clear. Believe me, I hear ya. I can easily jump on bandwagons that have loud, clear messages about something that is in the Bible. The problem is that I don't think people really want to hear about our bandwagons any more, people want to see lives that look different than everybody else's, lives that shine with the glory of Christ. Over the last year or 2, God has really been teaching me a lot about His Sovereignty and the power of the Holy Spirit to convict another's heart in a way that my stupid, opionionated, cutting words could ever do...and believe me, it's been a long road and one I've definitely not mastered. I had a problem around Halloween, I've never really been a hollaween fan and it predates being born again...just not my favorite holiday and this year it stretched from the last week of September all the way through October and I found myself venting to a friend, who lovingly reminded me that's it not about our stance or hatred of something, but our desire to love others into the family of Christ. I still don't love halloween, but I did receive a major attitude check.

I am going to insert my favorite scripture here: Be Still (Cease fighting) and know that I am God, I WILL BE EXALTED!

Christians often start ranting about how it's CHRISTmas not Xmas. In the ancient texts x was the symbol used for Christ. So I almost always write Xmas and in my Bible while taking notes and studying scripture, all references to Christ have an x. I am not x'ing Him out of my Bible, merely clarifying which of the Trinity is being talked about. We humans cannot take Christ out of Christmas, Jesus knows when He came to earth and He promises that He will be exalted. It is for His glory that we are all striving.

People have already started talking about Happy Holiday vs. Merry Christmas. I love the Lord with all my heart, except for on days when I didn't die to self first, but sometimes Happy Holidays is appropriate, there is more than 1 holiday being celebrated this time of year, after all. I know that we are fighting a very real war out there, and that there may be a time very soon when the Christian church really will be persecuted in our nation. However, I don't think that standing and yelling on top of every band wagon is going to bring others to the Risen Savior. But meekly loving others, being kind and generous, and falling to our knees for our country may loosen the flaps on the box where we've stored the Holy Spirit and reignite His fire and set Him loose across this nation.

We haven't talked much about Santa in our house. We just haven't made a big deal about it...we've never had pictures taken with Santa, although Elijah did once at school. We don't make cookies...there are presents (hard to wrap ones) that get left out on Christmas Eve and maybe the kids assume they come from Santa. We just don't talk about it. We don't even put from names on the packages...it's more about giving the gifts than it is taking credit for who gave the best gifts. We spend time talking about giving to others. We sponsor a family and give them gifts. We bake together and take goodies to our neighbors. And we have a huge birthday party, complete with a cake for Christ to help remind the kids why we celebrate Christmas.