Monday, December 26, 2011

Christmas to Me

Another Christmas has come and gone. I loved it... I always love it. I love it because I take the advice of the great sage philosopher, Charlie Brown, who said, “I won't let commercialism ruin my Christmas!” Of course the presents are nice and I love both the giving and receiving of them, however, Christmas is not about gifts. This is a wonderful lesson that my parents instilled in me and my siblings for years. We believed in Santa while growing up, and we received many gifts from my parents, but they never went overboard with them. We received well thought out gifts and it never meant the dollar sign behind it. I grew up in a very wealthy city. I have had friends who received a snowboard, snow gear, and a computer all in one christmas. Some of my friend's parents spent upwards of $1000 on each kid. My parents never came close to spending that. Did I ever feel left out or less cared for? I should say not! If anything my parents replaced the monetary value of a present with the invaluable gift of a loving and caring home, loving and caring parents, warmth and tradition, fun and comfort, closeness and family. But you see, these gifts have their root in the true meaning and spirit of christmas.

I watched many Christmas movies this year, five versions of A Christmas Carol, movies about Rudolf and Santa, and movies about unbelief and faith. It doesn't matter if it is a Christian film or not, the moral behind every Christmas film has to do with the true meaning of Christmas, the true reason for Christmas – Jesus. I don't care about the controversy behind Christmas actually having been a pagan holiday that the Christians borrowed, it doesn't negate the fact of why we celebrate it today. I don't care what day we celebrate Christmas, Ebenezer Scrooge said it the best when he vowed “to keep Christmas all the days of the year.” Christmas isn't a single day, it is only a reminder for what happened one night over 2000 years ago. The day that God, the Lord of the universe, the All Powerful Creator, the Uncreated, made himself nothing. He inserted himself into His creation as part of His creation. The day that God entered the world, mortal. And why did He do this? So that He, the great Father, could make a way to have a relationship with His children who had fallen away from Him. He showed the greatest act of selflessness to repair His family. What does it take to believe in such a story? Faith. What does the repairing of the family promote amongst believers? Friendship. Now think about almost every moral in Christmas movies. Many movies do not say Jesus is the reason for Christmas, for me, I don't mind... Because every Christmas movie I watched screamed his name with the foundations He set when He came to this world. Love, Faith, Selflessness, Family, and Friends. To me, that is what Christmas is all about.