You know, it is so easy to get distracted when at home with family and friends all around, when there is the hustle and bustle, commercials, and sales of the holiday season, and the snow and weather outside match the Christmas season. (Yes, I am from the Midwest. When I think Christmas, I think snow. Sometimes, I even think of snow when I think of Thanksgiving, because one year it snowed 5 inches on Thanksgiving Day.) As I write, I am realizing that one of the things I like about the Christmas season is the nostalgia and good feelings I get from everything surrounding the holiday. But that’s not what it’s all about. I know that. I know that for me, as a Christian, it should be about Christ. Really, everything in my life should be. I know that. But somehow it so quickly becomes about other things. Why? Because I look to other things to make me happy. What a lie! Nothing in this life can make me or anyone happy. Only God can. The nostalgia of the Christmas season is okay, as long as it is in the right place. Happy thoughts and feelings cannot be the things that make me happy. Neither can family or gifts.
So, as I look toward this Christmas season, I pray that I will do what I can to enjoy celebrating in a different place, with different people, in the heat, humidity, unfamiliar noise, and greenery. I pray that everything I do and think will be with an overflowing undercurrent of joy. Joy, so-called not because it is based on circumstances (which would be a fleeting happiness), but so-called because it is based on something that never changes no matter what the circumstances. It is a joy and hope placed in Christ. He has come to earth to be born, live a perfect life, die on our place for our sins, and rise again. He has saved me, and I am His and He is mine. What greater reason for joy or happiness could I ask for this Christmas season and always? I pray that this may be your reason for true joy and happiness always.
(And for those of you who love Christmas music, can’t get enough of it, and start playing it before Thanksgiving, don’t worry. Now that my joy is in the right place, I can listen to Christmas music again without being sad. And hey, at least Christmas music is one thing that’s the same this Christmas!)