Christmas - What's It Really All About?

Ah Christmas! Decorations, presents under the tree, stockings hung by the chimney with care, shopping, crowds, traffic, bills! While most enjoy this season we all have to admit that it comes with a mixture of delight and frustration. Why do we go through it all? (Oh no, here comes another one of those �true meaning of Christmas� articles!) Most of us endure the trials of the season because we enjoy the spirit of joy and celebration it brings. We love the opportunity it affords us to get together with friends and family. And while we would readily agree that we all love to receive gifts, we secretly revel in the pleasure of giving something special to a loved one. In its simplest form it is an excuse to party and celebrate in the middle of the winter season. These are the things that make Christmas a special time of year.

Today when we talk about the true meaning of Christmas we have to realize that it is difficult to get back to any �true� meaning. Ostensibly it�s to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, yet the true history of the holiday is clouded as much in the politics of the day in which it was created as in any spiritual context. And it�s precisely because of this that I think it amazing that the spirit of Christmas still lives in our post-modern world. In a world that applauds us for thinking of ourselves first, we are forced to think of others and in so doing, to give.

Giving is not something that comes naturally to us; taking does. Watch any toddler for ten minutes and he will prove my point. The fact is that I have to teach my children to give and to share. How I do that is, for the most part, left up to me. I can buy a box of cookies and ask my daughter to share them with her brothers, monitoring her actions and aiding when the �sharing� is a bit one-sided. I can empty the toy box and divide the toys equally among the children, showing them a form of sharing that demonstrates fairness as well. We�ve all done this � those of us who are parents. We want our children to grow up with a sense of generosity. But life isn�t always like that, is it? Life doesn�t always deal out the cookies fairly. We live in a world where there is great disparity between the �haves� and the �have nots.� It�s into this world that we need to inject the idea of giving. Absent our deliberate effort to do this the chasm of disparity will grow wider and wider.

The �true� spirit of Christmas does not stop at giving to those who have less than us. The true spirit of Christmas goes beyond that. If we go back to the original idea of what we are celebrating we will find an idea about giving that is total, devoid of any selfishness or even ideas of fairness. The Bible says that God loves the human race so much that he gave himself, in the form of his son, to us. This type of giving is pure in that the gift is the giver himself. When we celebrate Christmas we are celebrating something phenomenal: the idea that the maker of heaven a nd earth came into our world to show us his love. The gifts that we give one another are meant to lead us back to this original gift. But this is difficult in our material world. Each of us could, I�m sure, confess to having been snared by the �spirit of the season� as the advertising world would define it.

The solution is actually to enjoy the season with that original gift in mind, not to stop our celebrations and feel guilty. Too often a spirit of self-righteousness comes upon some, seeking to drag others down with them. It�s why we celebrate that�s important. If ever there was a reason to party, the fact that God came down and lived among us is one! The Bible teaches us that on the day Jesus was born all of heaven celebrated. Now if that�s true then we are in good company indeed.