A Christmas decision

Last year around this time, I didn't post anything (aside from a rant of sorts last November about what I perceive has gone wrong with Christmas) because time had gradually eroded my joy and anticipation for this time of year.  Actually, about the only thing that was still getting me excited about Christmas was the joy and anticipation that I saw in my kids.  For me, it was the growing busyness and over-commercialization year after year during this season of recognition of Christ's birth that caused it to become less important.  In fact, I can state that last Christmas was perhaps the least joyful I had ever experienced.  My lack of posting activity in this blog last December is one form of evidence to support this.

But this year I've decided to post something in the month of December because I've decided to decide that I should be excited about Christmas.  Even though it doesn't mark the actual time of year in which Jesus was born, there has always been the tiniest sense of anticipation for this season in my heart even during the least joyful of Christmas seasons, ones during which I've been under financial or other kinds of personal stress.

What I've always anticipated most is time with extended family.  If Christmas has one lasting virtue in this very anti-Christian culture, it's the fact that Christians and non-Christians alike tend to slow down and take the time to appreciate what's really most important in life:  relationships.  I realize that not all people have them or appreciate them, but I would have to say that this appreciation is what I've observed amongst even many non-Christians.

And so this year I've decided to get excited about the time I'm going to be spending with extended family because they are among God's greatest gifts to me.  Relationships are the true joy in life, one's relationship with God being the most important and joyful and fulfilling of all (at least it was meant to be; religion has warped and distorted the idea of how one is truly supposed to relate to God).  But even among non-believers, the happiest are those that have at least one good relationship with someone else.  And the most miserable of people, Christian and non, are those who've decided not to build relationships with others or to shut themselves off from them.

What will you decide during this Christmas season?  If you're a believer, will you choose to look beyond the busyness and over-commercialization and decide to be excited about the blessings you've been given, relational and otherwise?  If you're a non-believer, will you decide to look into the Christmas story with an open and objective mind instead of assuming it's fiction, and open yourself up to the possibility of entering into the most important and joyful and fulfilling relationship of all?

Whatever you decide, I hope that you can look beyond all that Christmas was never meant to be (all the glitz and hype that we see around us) and instead explore the true Meaning - "the Reason for the season" - and enjoy the blessings of what it is meant to be.