Let’s Keep Christmas

 

Christmas is coming this month. Are you already rushing about to do that last minute shopping for a perfect present for your friends and loved ones?

Do you find it hard to shop for your grandchildren because they already have at least one of everything? Stop and consider! Maybe the best gift is not in a store. What if you could give them a gift of love? Or understanding? Or consideration? Or a helping hand? Or a smile? Or a prayer?

These things can’t be bought in a store and are often the very things your family needs! If they receive these types of gifts from you this year, they will be blessed and happy.  Don’t let the hustle and bustle of Christmas shopping crowd the real meaning of Christmas out of your heart. Remember, it is the birth of our Savior that makes Christmas important to the world.

Have you bought into the attitude that “Christmas has become too commercialized”? It never will unless you allow it to happen in your family. Your Christmas can be as “Old Fashioned” as you want it to be.

Another idea that diminishes the importance of Christmas is the attitude that “Christmas belongs only to the children” . . . meaning that the buying and giving of presents to them is all there is to Christmas. This can often mean that the real meaning of Christmas has never been understood at all. The truth is that the older we get, the more Christmas means to us.

Have you heard someone say this year, “I just can’t seem to get in the spirit of Christmas this year”? That’s too bad. Their lack of appreciation for the birth of our Savior is rather significant. They are voicing the opinion that they feel no joy that Jesus came into the world. Forgotten is the promise that the Angels gave to the world at His birth when they said, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”  It was not a pronouncement upon the state of the world, but an announcement of God’s promise that His Son, the Christ Child, would change history forever.

Remember, the birth of Christ was the beginning of Christianity, a second chance for the world. With Christ came the hope for peace and the only way for mankind to have eternal life.

Let’s keep Christmas as it is in all the loveliness of it’s ancient traditions.

 

  by Marie Elliott