Have you noticed how many advertisements have words in them like, "enjoy a calmer Christmas", "take the stress out of the holidays", "simplify gift giving", etc? I think I get an add at least once a day in my inbox advertising a product or store that has the solution for a Christmas that is less hectic. It's got me thinking, if it's such a big deal in the marketing realm, there must be a lot of stressed out people trying to make it through this month with some sense of sanity by the end of it all!
Whatever happened to those things actually being part of the Christmas season? Calm, simple, about loving and gathering friends and family, simpler expectations, less pressure to find, buy or make the perfect gifts, all of what the season used to mean. I think our culture is crying out for that simplicity to come back. I know I am. As I've shared with you, we are making that a priority this year, to keep things calmer, less hectic and more meaningful, focused on what's really important and what we're really celebrating. For our family, it's a time of celebrating our Savior's birth and that day was SIMPLE! He was born in a stable with animals, laid in a food trough and his parents slept on hay. There was nothing glamorous about it, but from that simplicity came the most powerful and magnificent life in all of human history. Which again, makes me wonder (I know, I shouldn't think so much! ;)), why are we working so hard to impress people, make a big scene, be franticly working on our Christmas plans, when from a seemingly meaningless moment, history was altered forever.
A calm Christmas...that's what we want this year. One like the day Jesus was born, celebrating HIS coming and HIS gift to us among our family and friends.
Oh brother, I wrote a looong comment this morning and forgot to do the protection thing so it didn't post!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, we celebrated St. Nicholas Eve with J's parents this year b/c they won't be here for Christmas. We had it on the 5th, and they wrote a poem for everyone there about the gift they would be receiving. It had everyone laughing and was just a great time all -around. We had a Christmas dinner first as well. It was so nice to get the "stressful" part done (which is the gift-shopping) and now we just get to enjoy the rest of this season. On Christmas Eve and Day, we will have a small Christmas because we didn't know we'd enjoy St Nick's so much, but next year we fully plan on doing gifts on Dec 5th (or 6th) and then just looking forward to a little bday party for Jesus on Christmas, no gifts. I'm so excited to not have any of the stressful part associated with the celebration of Jesus' birth, and to just be reminded of what the day is.