Sabbatical over...
As a child I looked forward anxiously to Christmas... The coming of Christmas meant several things:
* school would be out
* presents!
* bright lights and good cheer.
My family would wait until Grand Market (Christmas Eve night) to do most of the Christmas shopping. We go out into the mad streets and get all the things we needed to get, and then spend the rest of the night hanging out with friends.
Looking back at it all, it was a rather inappropriate way to celebrate the coming of our Lord... it's hard to explain the enviroment, except to say that Grand Market is plenty people and loud raucous music... how does one go to church a few hours later with a clean conscience?
I'm no longer a fan of Grand Market... in fact, I only go now with a very specific purpose (most times to buy something), and in no time I'm back home. But as bad a Grand Market may be, people in this country have really lost sight of what Christmas is really about. It's more about buying stuff than anything else... we just spend and spend like we're earning Jesus points (not to be confused with Magna points) with each dollar released.
Christmas as we know it is about fun, gift-giving, family get-togethers and lots of food. When you ask someone how their Christmas was, you're likely to hear something like 'fun', 'hectic', or 'exciting'. Wouldn't it be great if we could say 'solemn', 'reflective' or 'reverent'? How many of us really treat Christmas with the respect it deserves?
4 comments:
That is very true, in fact my Grandmother used to say stuff like that when i was younger, that we should stop and reflect as we cross into Christmas Day but back then i only thought to do that for the New Year.
Christmas is all about commercialism, as people go about frantically in shop till you drop mode and stores grin with greed!
I like this post because it speaks to how I feel. And it irritates me to see Christ replaced with "X", but it speaks to how the season is treated/viewed.
i agree, but this christmass for the first time i realised that the idea of giving gifts comes from God's gift to us on Christmas and i think that in this act, people celebrate christmas unconciously. People who would not be reflecting on God anyway actually participate in this act of love. God did say that as He loves us so should we love one and other, and the whole world does that symbolically one day of the year (wether they know it or not)which says something about God's impact on the world. The hectic feeling comes from the sacrifice of giving gifts and the fun is part of the joy of giving and receiving.
thats just the direction my head went this christmas
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