Facebook post from Christmas 2019

Facebook Memories often make me smile. This one popped up today and seemed more fitting for this Christmas than last year's. I wish you all the best this year. Merry Christmas!

December 25, 2019 (from Facebook)

The common conversation starter this time of year is, “Are you ready for Christmas?” What does it really mean? I think we aim to learn whether our friend’s Christmas shopping is complete, their gifts are wrapped, the menu planned, house cleaned and decorated for company, their baking filling a cozily lit home with deliciousness… we mean to inquire whether their life, unlike our own, is a Norman Rockwell scene.

I’ve been thinking about it a lot this year- the meaning of Christmas and the way we pervert it with the above duties, all in the name of celebrating a baby, God incarnate, who came to the world to redeem us in an act of Grace, because of His Love for us. When I consider this, the plethora of gifts under our tree mean little to me except money spent trying to show my love for family members, with stuff they’ll have to find a place for. The time spent running around shopping for things in an age when we have more than we’ll ever need seems almost sacrilege. I look around my home and I really lack nothing except the time to simply sit with loved ones and soak in the true meaning of Christmas. Love. I’m reminded of Whoville, where Christmas came without boxes or bows. A Blessed baby comes, whether we’re prepared or not.

I want to spend more time with those I love, making memories, and less time worrying about grand meals and elaborate scenes we plan in our head but that never live up to what we imagine as we hurry through the weeks physically preparing for this day.

I want to spend more time making memories with loved ones instead of looking at the bank account in January and wondering whether it was really worth it. More money towards helping those who need it, and less on gifts we don’t need. I want less time wondering whether everyone is pleased and more time sharing with them experiences, and joy in the true meaning of Christmas.

The shepherds came with nothing but hope in the promise, that “Unto you (For US!) a Savior is born, who is Christ the Lord.” They came with empty hands in Awesome Wonder, and laid all they had at the foot of the manger: hands open in gratitude and praise, open hands willing to receive the greatest gift. This gift was bought, once and for all, paid for in full by Jesus’s eventual death on a Cross for our sins, and His Resurrection to Eternal Life. What more can we do, create, to improve on this? Does all of our shopping, preparing, decorating, planning, compare to the simple act of opening our hands and letting loose of all the physical trappings that come along with preparing for Christmas?

Yesterday our kids came out and we played games, exchanged gifts, laughed and visited. We took a sleigh ride through town, and ate finger food and cake. It was our simplest Christmas celebration, and it was the happiest. I will treasure it always. Today I ponder the simple gift of open hands: giving up control, resting, in adoration and expectation of His Love & blessings.

May this day exceed all your expectations, in simplicity and in splendor, in time with loved ones and in Thanks to Him for the only Gift that really matters. Merry Christmas!

Sleigh ride w/ the fam on 12/24/2019, seems like a hundred years ago