A lot of time has gone into preparing for a few short hours next Thursday! How many bazillions of dollars have been spent? How many bazillions of miles of wrapping paper have been used? How many pigs gave their all for Christmas hams?
I imagine that this must be disappointing to those who practice this annual routine with little more understanding than gifts, trees, tinsel and wreaths. If Christmas is just one more shiny thing for humanity to follow after, then it will disappoint like so many other shiny things. In the Old Testament God ordained specific days of celebration for his people. He was eager to encourage his people to commemorate, memorialize and celebrate.
Next Thursday as we wrap-up the unwrapping . . . Will we be finishing the celebration? Or will you commemorate, memorialize and celebrate the awesome gift of the Shiny One to whom all other shiny things point? He is not the reason for the season. It is enough to say that He is the reason.
I have come to appreciate the liturgical calendar approach of 12 days of Christmas with Advent as the preparation. Same thing with Easter: you get ready with Lent and Holy Week, then Easter lasts all the way to Pentecost! The calendar is a baby that got thrown out with the bathwater at the Reformation, I guess…
No major historical event is so misrepresented/danced-around as Christmas! I’m constantly amused by what the secularists claim “Christmas is all about,” and always shocked to hear any reference to Jesus in public.