Well, Christmas is once again done and over with. The highlight of my holiday season this year was the Bible Study Christmas dinner I went to on the Monday before Christmas. What fun that was.
This year more so than ever Christmas was a production. I had my lights up in the first week of November. I had the rest of the decorating done by Thanksgiving. Then there was the baking I usually do. My daughter gave me a reality check on that this year because usually most of the sweets are thrown out after Christmas because her and I are always on a diet. So little to none of the cookies and fudge was done.
Sometime before Christmas I got a word from God about Christmas. He said, “So many people make it about decorating, when it is really supposed to be about people.”
I live in a wonderful neighborhood where most of us decorate the outsides of our homes and cars drive slowly by to gaze at the wonder. A neighbor of mine got the award this year for the best decorations so we take it pretty seriously. Last night I was trying to get out of the neighborhood but couldn’t because there was so many cars driving through to gaze at the lights. I realized that we did the decorating for others, not ourselves sometimes.
Then today was Christmas and as I was bustling about my kitchen making the delicious Holiday meal I had to keep myself in check. I was getting anxious about the food getting cold and my kids not being downstairs to eat it. I raised my voice a couple of times and my daughter chided me for that. I immediately lowered the tone and calmed myself down because I remembered my childhood and how my mother would scream in frustration when she was getting ready for Christmas.
The gifts were all perfectly wrapped and in front of my entertainment center, which was also decorated to the hilt. We had a great time unwrapping our gifts and giving thanks to each other.
My company had not handled the holiday situation correctly at all and in addition to the stress that I had making a perfect meal I had to handle a bunch of stress that they had created. Thank God I have friends in the company which I can vent to and they made it so much better for me.
When we all sat down to eat, my sweet daughter offered to give thanks for the food. She said the sweetest prayer ever and I told her from now on she had that privilege.
Growing up I know that my mother had an artistic side so she wanted everything looking perfect. I appreciate that but it always seemed she cared more about how the house and tree looked than the children whom she had bought gifts for. My daughter has a touch of that too but she is so much more competent than either my Mother or I that she can pull it off without an explosion.
When I think of Christ and how He was born I wonder why we go to so much effort to put on a production. He never did. He didn’t even have a home to decorate. He didn’t go into debt buying gifts for us, yet He gave us so much more. He gave us His life to cover our debt of sin. That my friends is what Christmas is all about.
