The Season Continues
Christmas season brings out the worst in people.
I worked in retail for five years. I know.
I’ve never seen people so incensed about what they couldn’t give to someone until this time of year. It’s a race to see you can give the best and the brightest.
You have to ask yourself: is the joy on their faces for my self-gratification? Am I doing this to assuage guilt? Am I overgiving because I didn’t serve enough? Would I buy this in July even if the person earned it?
Probably not. But this season will do that. It blinds you, makes you feel that material gifts will pardon you from something you didn’t do this year.
It wasn’t meant to be this difficult.
Christmas was never meant to be this difficult.
When did it become this way? It didn’t start with corporate America. It started with us. With believers. We never really fought to preserve Christmas.
Publicly, we complain about the eradication of the holiday. Boo! To “Holidays”. War on Christmas. Starbucks is too liberal this time of year. Will wince at “Happy Birthday, Jesus!” cakes and say things like “we must remember what this season is all about” and get upset about the commercialism and corporate angst.
But yet, we somehow refuse to follow the marching orders from the person this holiday is all about. We forget about grace, about forgiveness. We pray for material things and not for each other. We’re over judgemental, we let anger seep from our pours. We hurt more than heal. We ostracize. We pity but refuse to empower.
We forget to give thanks for the gift that allows for us to wake up in the morning soaked in second chances. We forget about that light, we forget about that baby in the manger that was “full of grace and truth”.
Because when we go on these tangents about how Jesus is missing from Christmas but we, leave our Christ-likeness at home more than once, then all of our yelling and screaming and stomping is moot.
And we’ll be ignored like that kid that complains on Christmas because he or she didn’t receive what they wanted. Instead of giving thanks for what was given. Or in our case, who was.
- Ciara Todd
