Christmas Time is Here!

With Thanksgiving officially out of the way and Black Friday showing up... we can now focus on Christmas and all that stuff!

Now to get this season started, I am reminded of the personal side of Christmas.... no, more personal than that! Not simply is this a time of family and loved ones, and personal responsibility for whatever we want to focus upon, but it is a time of personal knowledge and understanding of the event we anticipate and engage with during this time. What this time of year, and Christmas specifically brings to us is a sense of "I know something about that!. In about a month we are going to be celebrating the birth of the Savior, Jesus! And, most of us know what it's like to see a baby or have a baby in our families or have possibly even been a baby at one time though from my experience, some people have never been children! While is a store or in a church or pretty much any public place we can find these little ones in strollers or in the arms of a parent or sibling! We see the aisles of baby food and diapers in the stores and during this time especially, we enter into the mega stores and see the seemingly endless acres of toy for all the good girls and boys! In other words, babies are not a great mystery to most of us. They are cute little boys and girls who sometimes smell wonderful and sometimes not so much! I remember my little ones learning to walk and run and to ride bikes! Now they're in high school, college and the Marines and having grandchildren for me!

During this time of year I believe we relate best to Jesus because we are looking, thinking of something we all seem to know very well for ourselves. Much of his life we do not know too much about and during his ministry we can understand but as he gets closer and closer to the cross, and ultimately dies on the cross and rises again, we lose that personal (I can relate) feeling and it seems to become more of a mystery and sometimes more difficult to understand or possibly even accept, unfortunately.

And there lies the innocent and perfect joy we can have during this season.... a baby is born and we know what that's like!

So, we begin the Christmas season with a personal connection with Jesus. So we feel the joy and love and excitement! What a great start to the Christmas season! Christmas music will officially be "acceptable" starting in the morning... well, at least for some of us who have had to hold off on playing it for the last couple months. Candy canes are in the stores and all the commercials on TV will somehow be telling us that this year... we can be special and loved by buying the perfect gift for the ones we love.

And hopefully we will see the irony and have a laugh because we celebrate this time because the perfect gift was given to this world and to all humanity in the manger in Bethlehem because of the love God has for us!

Maybe I can be the first to wish you a Merry Christmas!