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God so loved the world that He gave His Son so that we may have life! Joy to the world the Lord is come!
My family loves Christmas; the kids have asked if we can have Christmas everyday! However, we easily gets distracted with the decorations and especially with gifts - we loose sight of Christmas as an historic event, a present abiding within and changing of the heart and a future event.
This year, we are - and will be - doing better remembering the Gift and living in the Light.
While Christmas shopping, I saw a big sign in a store proclaiming, "Celebrate Snow!" I do, I do; but that's a really lame substitution for Merry Christmas! Especially here, in Florida, where we've had some chill winds but mostly just mild temperatures - and of course, no snow.
On one of those balmy days, the neighborhood caught me hanging Christmas lights while clad only in undies. Evidently, the privacy feature of a privacy fence is compromised by every step you climb up a ladder.
If one is to be spotted sporting only underwear, respectable, plain boxers are preferable. Shameful would be a crazy motif, like the birthday underwear, boasting a sassy portrait of the Grinch, that my eight year-old daughter gave me.
Upon receiving the Grinchwear, I thought "Cool; the Grinch is one of her favorite characters, just like me!" I explained to her The Grinch is a nice, but secular, story of redemption - the kind were the Redeemer doesn't actually appear but, at least you see the spirit of Christmas produce a change of heart in someone whose heart was formerly two sizes too small.
Then my wife told me to quit trying to craft a spiritual angle to my daughter's Grinch gift since she gave me it because I had been stuffing her dreams in a sack and stomping on her joy while ripping off her Christmas!
Me? I was just trying to give the family Christmas, and Christmas more abundantly.
Attempting to focus attention on Jesus, I had read the family a couple of cutesy pieces about why Jesus is better than Santa and a Dear Santa letter in the style of a Dear John letter. I also excitedly explained that many Christian families limit gifts to three per person to reflect the number given by the three kings and to fight commercialism!
The family was unimpressed by those stingy Magi, and was ready to rumble with me, the Magi and their camels to show that nobody was going to mess with their Christmas greed.
Learning how much holier some families were rocking Christmas compared to us made me feel all Claus-trophobic, so I told my wife it's time to give Santa, and his hedonistic loot, the boot. However, she appealed on the grounds of fostering imagination, and begged for one more year of the Santa fantasy.
We compromised; I got to keep the three present limit and she got the indulgent, fat dude. Secretly however, I felt totally triumphant because my daughter is at the perfect age to get the scoop on Santa at school, and then she'd blab to everyone. Indeed, soon she came home and announced some punk boy bragged that Santa is a fake.
Caught between my wife's menacing stare and my disdain for boys trying to impress my daughter, I told my daughter, "All punk boys are fakes, yet we must believe they do exist."
While she was scratching her head over that mystery, she noticed my Bible in my lap (right where it always is, except when I'm outside in my undies, stringing lights) and then she screeched, "He does EXIST! He's in the Bible!"
There on the cover of my Bible, embossed in gold, she spied the words SANTA BIBLIA - which is Spanish for HOLY BIBLE. She reasoned that God is soooo solid with Santa, his name even made the cover of the Bible!
Nothing could shake her belief in Santa this year! To wrench the focus away from Santa splurging, I implemented daily rehearsals of this catechism:
How many gifts did the Baby Jesus receive on the first Christmas? Three.
So, how many gifts should the baby Jasmine receive this Christmas?
Only three!
My sister became enraged when she heard I was giving my kids just three Christmas presents. To get the most bang out of the limited number of gifts, my sister started tracking the daily rise in gold prices with my daughter, and forget about the price of frankincense - they were determined to make me pay like a king! I then reminded my sister that three is exactly one more gift than we got when we were kids.
Perhaps my parents were ahead of their time when it came to curbing some of the madness of Christmas gifting? This talented two pioneered the extraordinary art of melding austerity with extravagance by introducing us to their version of Russian Christmas.
Following the Julian calendar, Russian Orthodoxy celebrates the blessed day of Christmas on January 7. However, to my parents, Russian Christmas was just code for "Don't blow your cash until all the bling gets marked down after Christmas."
On the evening of December 24, we'd always get two gifts. One was a swanky sweater from Lord & Taylor or Bloomingdale's (or, at least the box was). The other gift was a check - intended to be spent like mad during those primo sale days between Western and Eastern Christmases. Why should our Orthodox neighbors get all the ridiculous bargains?
Even as a child, I questioned the wisdom of my parents' approach - mostly because it didn't sound as greed gratifying as the Christmases my friends described. However, the only time - on record - I didn't question my parents, I was left with the notion that Jesus may be thrifty with a buck.
Visible from a highway we frequently traveled was a nondescript building with a large neon sign that read "JESUS SAVES". When I was about my daughter's current age, I remember asking my mother what that meant. She must have been engrossed in navigating her cares of the day and the bustling traffic because her indolent answer was, "Oh, that must be a bank advertisement."
Having passed that sign thousands of times, I had always passively believed the building was a bank - and regrettably never fully knew the meaning of Jesus Saves. As an adult, I was astonished when I had the occasion to drive past the front of that building and discovered it was a church. Although, I've been more amazed by learning what Jesus does for us.
When I was a kid, I got a few things about Jesus, but not enough. Maybe what I didn't get was really the important part; the absence of which is the reason behind all the folly on every ladder I ever climbed. However, perhaps I got enough about Jesus that He hung on to me throughout the years until I was ready to get some more.
As a man who has everything, there's only one gift I need and want - the same Gift we all need. This year, I must ensure everyone in my family, no matter how big or how small, gets Jesus - and we won't even count this Gift against their three gift limit!
There will be no limit in giving - talking about - singing about the Gift that's cooler than snow, the Gift that covers our nakedness inside and outside, the Gift that changes the size of your heart, the Gift that's so much more extravagant than anyone's expectations - it never stops giving!
God so loves and Jesus so gives - it is Christmas everyday!
So, how's your family doing this Christmas?
To all friends at Delve Into Jesus, I wish a Merry Christmas, Feliz Navidad and if you happen to be celebrating Russian Christmas, S' Rozhdestvom!
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