The Christmas Season

DISCLAIMER: Before reading on, if you don't celebrate Christmas or are not a person of Christian faith, I give you the warning beforehand that I am going into my religious beliefs for my blog today. If you have a problem with it, just click the little "X" on my blog and forget I ever posted this.

My students today were the influence for today's blog entry. Today was the Christmas lesson for my CCD classes, and I immediately came with the idea to write this blog about a rather...superfluous topic that seemingly flows through blogs and other discussion sites left and right during this season.

In today's materialistic society, we forget the true meaning of Christmas. Sure, it's spending time with family, giving and receiving. I think there's more to Christmas than that, though. Christmas is a time to reflect on the reason why we are celebrating Christmas. For Christians like myself, that reason is remembering the miraculous birth of Jesus, and in turn, remembering the life that Jesus had about 2000 years ago. For those of you who aren't of a Christian background, that's fine and dandy, celebrating Christmas as a way to spend time with the family. I just think they're missing out on the reason why we're actually celebrating Christmas.

Oh, the innocence of youth, when you ask them "What's the meaning of Christmas?" And they answer with a bright-eyed smile, "getting presents from Santa." I was one of those kids when I was growing up, and it's fine when they're young, because they don't know any better. There's nothing like seeing a child's face on Christmas morning when they see all the presents under the tree.

This video fits nicely with my blog topic for today. I'll admit, 11 years ago when I got a Nintendo 64 for Christmas, I was as ecstatic (perhaps even more than) as this kid in the video. My parents can vouch for that.

My advice for you, as I conclude my blog for today. Remember the CHRIST in Christmas. It's not X-Mas, or anything else. Everything else has just been developed through tradition because of a certain generous third century man with the name of Nicholas, who lived for making the lives of those less fortunate a little more bearable. Jesus died for us, and although this holiday is celebrating his birth, a renewal of life of sorts, we can't ignore everything that Jesus did to give us the faith that there truly is a God who created us and loves us, and who wants to spend an eternity with us in Heaven.

The countdown is down to 6 days until Christmas!

If I don't make any posts before then (I doubt it, I should be able to make one or two more posts before Christmas), I want to wish everyone a very blessed Christmas!

Brandon G.