It's Christmas Morning!

It's Christmas morning, a day to remember and celebrate the birth of Christ.
My brother Brad sent me this email last night and I thought it was insightful.

Christmas is a time of celebration. Bright packages and ropes of pine, starched red bows and ribbons, eggnog and plum pudding, all promising we’ll be touched by something extraordinary.

But Christmas is a time of memory as much as celebration. For some it is memory of loss, intensified because, for all our lives, we’ve seen it as the season of promise. So much promised by friends and family, so little given in the rush. Christmas is and can be lonely. A loneliness that crowds us like no other as we turn inward, farther from reality than at any other season.

Just once we ought to set about preparing for the downhill run that nearly always accompanies the tinsel. The only way to do so is to get outside us and think about the infant in the manger long ago. Not just remembering His birthday, but remembering the trials and truth that marked His life and, down these many years, also mark ours. We are better because He was the best. Throughout His life He carried the passkeys to His father’s house, then threw them to us from the cross. Whatever went before, life only started when His life began.

God may have been the architect, but He sent Christ, His only son, to be the builder of bridges, people to people. He showed us in a thousand ways that none of us need fear again, that worry is worth nothing, loneliness is self - indulgence, and death is only a passport to everlasting life.

This year, as Christmas makes it’s round again, resolve to smile inside and out. Carry kindness to its farthest edge, compassion still beyond. In the process you may even come to know yourself and like what you find. Then, reaching just a little farther through the mists and myths, maybe even grasp the outstretched hand of God.



What an incredible thought; We need not fear, for we have hope in Christ and can share it with those around us.
That baby in the manger is our Savior, our Redeemer. So in the hustle and bustle of life we should slow down enough to see those around us, and ask ourselves, what can I do or say to bring hope to a world that does not know the Sacrifice that was made?

I think I'll get dressed and go out today to see where I can shine the love of Christ. After all, the kids won't be here until tomorrow so that means I have all day to be a blessing to those around me. In return I think I will be the one who is blessed.

On a different note, before I read this email on was sitting on the couch with my cup of coffee reminiscing of days gone by;
It's funny the things we miss as our kids grow up.
Like the sound of pajamas pitter pattering on the floor.
Stepping on a Lego that almost killed us.
Reading the same book over and over....

I woke up early to a quiet house with Manny sleeping in and the cats curled up under the tree.
As I sat there in the quiet I thought of the days when Zechariah would wake up early with anticipation of Christmas morning.
Recalling how my Mom would decorate the fireplace with plastic poinsettias,and fill our stockings with oranges, and give the kids pajamas that took them 2 years to grow into. :)
Remembering my first bike hidden in the garage.

Memories are good, and for those that have gone before us, Christ gives us the hope we will celebrate together again someday.

For us, we need to love one another and spread that hope that only comes from Christ.
I am thankful that my brother reminded me of what this day is all about.