What will it be like this year for your family?
Thanksgiving? Christmas?
Just the other day, I saw Christmas decorations up in a nearby town.
We have barely lived through Halloween!
I understand that some retail stores depend on the business boom of Christmas to make it financially the rest of the year.
I understand that some people like to start shopping early to have presents paid for and set aside for the “big day” in December.
But if we are not careful, the rushing of holidays by society can take away some of the joy of celebration. Commercialization of everything to bring in more money, encourage people to spend more, and to put the focus on the material can make it hard to remember the real reason for the holidays we are celebrating.
I love the church celebrations of Thanksgiving and Christmas! If you don’t have a church home, there are lots of churches to choose from in our area where you will be welcome. The sermons on the reason for giving thanks and the miracle of the birth of Jesus Christ our Savior, the songs, the pageant of the Nativity, celebrate the real reasons for the holidays.
Is there a modern day Virginia, the famous letter-writer to the New York newspaper, The Sun, around to ask the pertinent questions about Thanksgiving and Christmas? She had asked her father if there really was a Santa Claus. Unsatisfied and unconvinced by his answer, she wrote a newspaper, The Sun. Her father had told her that, “if you see it in The Sun, it’s so.” The answer to her letter was published as an editorial. If you haven’t read it, you can look it up online. (This newspaper, The Sun-Sentinel in Charleston, also reprints it in each annual Christmas edition.)
One thing The Sun editor said long ago is that the children who told Virginia that Santa wasn’t real had “been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age.”
How would you describe the age our children are living in?
If your child or teen asks you why we have Thanksgiving, what do you say?
If your child or teen asks you why we have Christmas, what do you say?
Has society in general lost the blessing of being thankful for the numberless gifts God has given us? Is life valueless now?
Has society erased Christ the Savior’s birth from the American Christmas?
Thank God there are still thankful people, still faithful people, still believing people who recognize all good and perfect gifts come from above! Thank God some children and youth are taught who Jesus is, how He was born, what He did, and how to have a saving, forgiving relationship with Him!
Thank God there are church hymns that reinforce the idea of thanksgiving to God, church hymns that tell the story of Christ’s birth and the joy on earth and in heaven at that pivotal event, and Scripture that describes the events surrounding the Holy birth. Take part in the real celebrations this year.
Yes, Virginia, there are still thankful people in America, and there is a real, living Jesus alive today!
