How are you preparing for Christmas?

So, with all this talk of buying and giving and wanting and all that what are you doing to prepare for the big day, or the season of Christmas? It's here already, the season that is, but what else are you doing to make it special for you and others.

 Some watch all the Christmas specials, the old ones, I cannot get through Christmas without seeing "A Charlie Brown Christmas", or Boris Karloff in "How the Grinch stole Christmas". Others put the music on, for me it has to be "The Messiah" and a collection of my favourite oldies, "White Christmas", the "Chestnuts" song by Nat and even "The Littler Drummer Boy" duet with Bing and Bowie. Others read the Luke 2 version and still others read Dickens' "A Christmas Carol".

We can't just let Christmas come without preparing. I'm not talking about the purchases, the food, the tinsel. I am talking about the emotional stuff that causes us to remember. I remember the first time I watched Charlie Brown and heard Linus speak those famous words about shepherds in the field. I cry every year when I watch the cartoon. Why? Because Charles Schultz got it right when he used the peanuts gang as an inclusive troupe to tell the real story about Christmas.

For me this year, I am reading A Christmas Carol. I don't like the Alistar Sim original version of the movie, I much prefer books. I will also spend time reading the gospels as they tell the story and charge us to "tell it on the mountain". Of course music will be playing regularly as I and we prepare for our son to be "Home for Christmas".

I am preparing for that 11 day period when the family foursome is finally together again, possibly the last Christmas we spend together in Canada for some time. His work may require him to be away next year and we will endeavour to join him wherever he is, so that we will be together for the Christmas season.

I am also preparing by thinking of those who are no longer with us on this earth. Both my parents passed at Christmas time over the years and you know of the loss of our friend this August. I will miss my Mom and Dad and my friend Ruth and will continue to do some of the things that my parents taught me about Christmas as part of a tribute and as a passing on of tradition and memories.

No matter how you are preparing for the celebration of Christmas, make time to remember why we celebrate Christmas. In the midst of the food, fun, gifts, movies, music and pandemonium take a moment and thank God for Jesus.