It’s almost Christmas Day. Here’s a reminder: Dec. 25th is the FIRST day of the Christmas season, not the last one. Christmas lasts until January 6th, the first day of Epiphany. When you start the celebration early, you tend to get tired of it early. It’s a challenge I have every year. Everybody is in such a rush! . Trees up early. Lights on houses lit by Thanksgiving. Christmas music on the radio by December 1st. It seems everyone is in a hurry to have Christmas – and then in a hurry to get it over with too.
So, are you doing anything different this year? Maybe trying to pause or take it slower? And, are you doing anything to help reduce the stress of the season?
I’ve got all my gifts purchased. Most are wrapped. I spent time over two days this week listening to Country Christmas music while I wrapped. There is such great music out there. The classics are wonderful – but there is just SO MUCH to choose from!. Do you have a favorite? Do you try and keep gifts ‘even’ in quantity and price? I do, and it gets difficult sometimes. I guess I worry that it will look like I favor one person over another, and I don’t want anyone to feel like they are less. Because, they are not. Do you have that one person who is really hard to buy for? I think we all do.
Temps are supposed to be pretty chilly here over Christmas, which is unusual. I live in the south and I love that I don’t have to bundle up to go upside. This year I might have to though – but thankfully there will not be snow. Wondering: Why do so many Christmas songs have lyrics about snowmen, and sleigh rides, and ‘baby, its cold outside’? Jesus was born in a desert area and climate.
Speaking of Jesus: He is the reason for the season! Another reminder. Sometimes we get so busy with everything else we forget about the baby born in the stable in Bethlehem. Mary & Joseph left Jerusalem to get away, to save the baby boy from death, and they could not even find a room in an inn. Mary delivered Jesus with just Joseph there, and animals. Have you had a baby? You we’re probably in a hospital – with painkillers and a pediatrician and other specialists standing by just in case. Imagine this very young couple dealing with labor and childbirth alone! A bright star was high in the night sky for the next days after the birth – and shepherds followed it and came down from the hills, and learned wisemen came from afar. They knew something was up! How? From the prophets who foretold what would happen. Still -most thought that another grown king was going to come and save them!
We should have learned then that kings are not spiritual leaders. Right? Even today we worship the wrong ones. We look to those with the most money, or with a wonderful PR department. The arrival of Jesus as a baby was the opposite of all that was expected. And since then He has turned the world upside down. Read the Be-attitudes. Blessed are those poor in spirit, those who need comforting, the poor, and the weak, the hungry, the merciful, the peacemakers, and those who are pure in heart. Jesus’s arrival and his message was different than what society put favor in, what people looked up to. His messages was about acceptance of all, about the love of your neighbor (and enemy), and reaching out to teach and help.
As Linus said in the Peanuts Christmas story…
And suddenly there was with an angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and goodwill towards men.”
Okay. So, it wasn’t Linus who said it first. It comes from the book of Luke. The angels announced his birth, and they said he will bring the way to peace and goodwill. Here. For us. All of us. On earth.
Christmas seems to me today to be about spending money, and tacky sweaters, and Santa Claus at the mall, and special coffee drinks, and blow up balloons in front yards. No wonder we want Christmas to be over on December 26th. Trees shed their needles, light strands burn out. Garbage cans get filled with bags of paper and boxes. Everything pretty has lost it’s shimmer.
So it’s time to move on. A new year – and a new celebration is around the corner. Right?
Hmmm.
I hope to keep the true Christmas story – and the meaning of following Christ – for a lot longer then to the new year. To epiphany and beyond! (Said in a Buzz Lightyear voice!) Imagine if we all could.
Marla’s Musings 