“Where is the Christ Child?”

    Somehow, we find ourselves in the last month of the year.  And, one of the busiest.  Thanksgiving is over and forgotten.  Are you still reflecting each day on your many blessings, and are you still expressing your thanks?  
    For those of us who are exposed to TV, radio or the social media, this time of the year seems to be a time of huge and overwhelming obligations.  The weather forecasters remind us to get out on nice, sunny days and do our holiday decorating.  It boggles our mind to think that a whole industry has sprung up in which companies will come and decorate our houses for us.  And then there is the hard decision to make as to which car will make the best present.  And, is it for ourselves or for the one we love?                         Even Thanksgiving kind of gets shoved out of the way after the morning football game and the big meal as stores open for “Pre-Black Friday” sales (which actually seemed to start in mid-November this year).  Then there’s Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday and Holiday Sales and, of course, After-Christmas sales.  We’re not sure who is more stressed – the merchants or their clients.
    Somewhere in all this orgy of spending, decorating and partying, we would like to think that we, as Christians, would be able to say, “Whoa!  Why are we doing all this?”  Is all this to allow the economists to admire the “year-end spending?”  Is it so that your house will be mentioned in the local paper for its elaborate decorations?  Or, in the end, is this just a backward extension of New Year’s celebrations?           Where is the Christ Child in all this?  In recent years, even Christmas Eve church services are seeing fewer folks in the pews.  Please, get your Bible out.  Re-read Luke’s Christmas story (Luke 1 to Luke 2:20).  Reflect on it.  Think about what it means for this world.  Think about it means for you personally.  
    We hope that your December is one of happiness and good things.  And we hope that your best Christmas gift is an awareness of God’s amazing love for you and for all mankind.    Virginia                              “… what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.  She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”                                                                                    Matthew 1:20b-21