A friend recently shared a very true statement with me.
Christmas is not OUR birthday! This profound little thought has become a family theme for us this year. We are pondering the advent conspiracy movement and re-evaluating what this season means to us. While we love the traditions and the warmth of Christmas, we have made a concerted effort to make it a less complicated and more meaningful holiday.
This "Our Twelve Days of Christmas" series I've been blogging about has highlighted some of the fun things we do as a family, and having fun together is most definitely a goal for us all during this magical time of year. And because there is so much to choose from, we have to pick what we like best.
But fun and important are not the one and the same, and while we enjoy participating in festivities and traditions we also know that they are not really all that important. Does it really matter if we sit on Santa's lap every year? Or bake the same dozen kinds of cookies? No! It doesn't!
What is important is that we acknowledge that Jesus is Lord, and that He was sent into this world, fully God and fully man, into the form of a sweet, newborn baby. It is HIS birthday! And this is our true gift.
So as we enjoy this special season, we have taken a step back to make it a little less harried, a little less expensive, and a little less the-same-old-thing.
You see, this leaves us more energy to focus on the Christ child, and this my friends, brings the most complete and real joy there could ever be.
