It Is Almost Here!

Thursday November 25, 2010. A day for Joy! A day to create memories! A day to… SHOP! Oh, did you think I was talking about Thanksgiving? No, I was talking about the Toys-R-Us sale of the year, which has been moved from Black Friday to Thursday. Yes, Thanksgiving Day. A day that could be used for family, joy, memories, or helping those in need, but now instead we can go shopping one day earlier, to fuel our materialism and in most cases waste money on gifts that people don’t need. In a year they probably won’t be using them, and in 10 years they probably won’t remember them.

I know, I sound like Scrooge! It is not that I don’t love Christmas. I truly do love Christmas time. I watch Elf year round and proudly blast “Santa Clause is coming to town” (The Live Bruce Springsteen 1970’s version) from my radio and sing as loud as I can. I have just started to have some concerns for how we celebrate Christmas. Here is my main concern. For a day that is supposed to be celebrating the birth of Christ, we spend an awful lot of time, and money, making it about people other than Christ.

I have recently read a couple of blogs about Christmas time and the giving of gifts. I liked what both had to say. One was from Jared Wilson titled The Goodness of Gift Giving: the Real Christmas Conspiracy. The second was from Ann Voskamp titled: Christmas: Thinking About Whose Birthday It Is. They take two different approaches to answering the Christmas question. I suggest you read both of them.

For those of you who have stuck with me to the end of this post, let me say, I am not telling you that you are wrong for buying gifts for your family. I am not telling you that my family is not buying Christmas gifts any more. Our boys will have stuff under the tree. But it is just that; it is stuff. It is stuff that will rust or rot, stuff that will get lost, forgotten, or destroyed. It is not eternal. So what I am is asking is that we as believers spend some time in prayer this year before we do go out and do some binge shopping. Pray about and consider what your plans are for celebrating this holiday. And however we are going to celebrate, let us be certain to spend more time this this year sharing the truth of Christ and the truth of why we are celebrating.