Where Are You Christmas?

Researchers believe that the average American family will spend between $750 -$950 on Christmas this year.  If their math is right, that means we will spend hundreds of billions of dollars this Christmas season.  Have you ever slowed down to ask yourself, what’s the point?  Why does it seem that Christmas has become the season to spend instead of a season of celebration? 

During a season designed to focus around remembering and appreciating the birth of our Savior, a creeping kind of idolatry has consumed our culture and our communities.  Many of us are drowning in a sea of financial debt and endless lists of gifts to buy.  We are overwhelmed by the stress induced during this season that there is hardly any room left for worship in our hearts.

We’ve bought into the marketing lie that spending money is the best way to express love; so somehow, this has become the new normal.  This has become the “average” Christmas routine.  Every year people are wrapped up in the Christmas frenzy, and every year the Advent season is lost in the chaos that Christmas has become.

But as my favorite Christmas parable, the Grinch, reminds us Christmas has nothing to do with the presents; it’s about something else entirely.  If you recall, even though the Grinch stole all the gifts from the citizens of Whoville, it did not ruin their Christmas.

“He hadn’t stopped Christmas from coming, it came just the same.  It came without ribbons.  It came without tags.  It came without packages, boxes or bags.  Maybe Christmas the Grinch thought, doesn’t come from the store, maybe Christmas he thought perhaps means a little bit more.”

This Christmas season we are inviting you to ask the question, “What is Christmas all about?”, and to consider if we’ve filled it with too much of the wrong things, or placed expectations in the wrong places.  This Advent season we hope you will discover what makes this time of the year something to continually celebrate.