I just had to share this again given that this old post from a long while back is still relevant today. It's so easy to get caught up with the trappings of what the world says Christmas is about: shopping, getting, spending, over eating, etc.
Take a minute, and remember exactly what we were given on that Silent Night so long ago. This gift is eternal, and given with a love our minds can't fathom. It's the gift of Jesus Christ. He loves you. He came for you. He died for you. He rose FOR YOU!. If you were the only one that needed this gift. HE WOULD STILL COME! Hold that thought as you read on....
Christmas Eve makes me remember when I was a child, and December 24th would arrive. I think Christmas Eve has always been my favorite. Don't get me wrong. Presents have always been great so Christmas Morning was the ultimate, but Christmas Morning was the last day. Once the gifts were unwrapped, the anticipation was over. Christmas was over, at least in my childhood mind. Christmas Eve, however, was the height of anticipation. There was electricity in the air! As a child I felt like Christmas Day would never come and Christmas Eve seemed to last forever. But it was fun!
We always got a gift on Christmas Eve. Some little something to take the edge off; so to speak. Ironically the one gift I remember best from one childhood Christmas Eve, was the one I received in bed because I had the stomach flu. Stomach flu had gone thru just about everyone in the house, and I was one of the last on the roster. I had recovered by Christmas Day, but was still shaky. Anyway, that Christmas Eve I got a Charlie Brown...how would you say? It was like a magnetic board, but it wasn't magnetic. It was slick and it had little slick Charlie Brown Characters you could attach in any way you wanted in order to create a scene. Not a big elaborate gift, but it did the trick.
Christmas Eve was the best after bed time. Christmas Eve is the one time of year children will willingly go to bed and try to sleep. Lol. In order to keep us 5 kids in line, Christmas Eve was the time all us kids slept in the same room with our oldest sister watching us. We had electric candles in the window and my mom had multiple colors of lights in them. We got to leave the candles on all night, and the result was surreal. A rainbow of colors spread across the ceiling! There was little to no sleep....for us or our parents. My poor parents were up just about the whole night getting everything put out. I (We, Daddy, I wasn't the only one regardless of what my brothers said) was up the whole night worrying my parents were still going to be awake and Santa wouldn't stop (Bad parents! lol), or sneaking out to the hall to peer into the darkness (again Daddy I wasn't the only one) in the hopes we could see something after our parents turned the lights off and went to bed. Needless to say 5 am was a perfectly logical time to drag my sister and subsequently our parents out of the bed to start Christmas Day.
As the years have passed my Christmases have changed. No longer a child myself, I would see Christmas through the eyes of my children. Wide eyed wonder at the lights, Santa, the presents, etc. Now my Children are adults themselves. My daughter and her husband have the joy of seeing Christmas in their children's eyes. Christmas has changed for us again. Now it is really more of a spiritual celebration. I still love the giving and receiving of gifts, but my focus turns more toward why we give those gifts.
This year, as I laid out the Nativity, it just so happened O Holy Night was playing on Pandora. The Nativity ended up being laid out with tears. I couldn't help but Praise God for this precious gift. Over 2000 years ago, on another Christmas Eve, the world held its breath in anticipation of the child to be born on Christmas Day. I guess anticipation has always been a major part of Christmas, only the first Christmas never ended with the coming of Christmas day. Instead it became the beginning of everything.
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