How does your family celebrate birthdays?
I was at the store and they are already putting up Christmas Trees! Halloween isn’t for a month, yet they have those decorations up and Thanksgiving, and now Christmas! The retailer wants to get the most exposer they can for each holiday. And that is all it is to them, a holiday! A day they hope to break all sales records for selling everything you can imagine. Soon the television will be inundated with commercials about toys your children cannot live without, and so the wish list will begin.
This is the perfect time to put on the breaks! Start now putting Christ back in Christmas. Make the whole holiday about him, the reason he came, how he lived, and the result of him living a sinless life. Let’s turn back the hands of time when Christmas was about Christ and being part of the family of God.
With the disasters that happened recently, it is a good time to have your family focus on giving gifts to those less fortunate. Make Thanksgiving a truly thankful time in your household, not a time of gluttony and indulgences. Have each person around the table say what they are thankful for and devise a plan at that time how you all can make the birth of Christ a holiday that puts Christ and everything he stands for back into Christmas.
As parents we are guilty of giving our children lavish gifts at Christmas. But have you ever sat your child down and explained why gifts are given at all during this holiday? How Jesus was born, the Lamb of God to give the gift of his life to give us forgiveness and eternal life. Teach them to want to give gifts more, and want gifts less.
We as writers tend to skim over the deeper meaning of this holiday and make it more of a magical time of romance. The relationship Christ has with us is the greatest love story ever told. Don’t be ashamed to write about it!
Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.
Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily.
But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins.
Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,
Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
Matthew 1:18-23