It doesn't seem like Christmas

 

I have heard the comment several times in the last couple of weeks: "It doesn't seem like Christmas."  The comment is usually brought on because of the warmer than usual weather with no snow (hallelujah!), how fast the season has rolled around, or other reasons.

  Maybe it is because I have been more introspective this Christmas than I normally am, but the comment bugs me a bit more this year than other years I have heard the same comment. Doesn't seem like Christmas? What should Christmas seem like?

Should there be snow? There most likely wasn't snow at the first Christmas.

Should more of the gifts be wrapped and bought? That wasn't a priority at the first Christmas.

Should we be more in the mood for Christmas? Not many people were even aware of the first Christmas.

   The first Christmas involved God laying in a dirty feed trough. It involved dirty and smelly shepherds being among the first people to greet the newborn King. There were no gifts, no snow covered yards, no decorations, no tree....... just a newborn baby lying in a cattle feed trough.

  We Christians tend to criticize the commercialization of Christmas, all the while commercializing it up to our chins. We like to think we have the corner of the market on the true meaning of Christmas, yet if everything isn't just how we think it should be; we think it doesn't seem like Christmas.

 So the next time you are tempted to think or utter those words "it doesn't seem like Christmas", stop and think of what that first Christmas was like and all about...... and thank God for what Christmas is all about.