A different Christmas

Last night during our prayer time at worship practice, my best friend Cathy mentioned that there seems to be such a drive, an urgency lately to celebrate Christmas with more focus on Christ and less on commercialism. She's right - you just need to read a couple of your regular blogs to see it happening. It's not just a localized thing.

Waving/Drowning and others are buying goats for 3rd-world families. 14 so far! (Do I qualify for a goat as a needy family in the 3rd world, I wonder? :) ) Others are encouraging a buy-nothing Christmas, or a focus on less is more. All over there's a revival of interest in Advent, in a daily focusing on the reason for the Season.

Personally, I think it ties completely in with the "movement" (for lack of a better word) toward seeking true Being and not just Doing as a part of God's followers. Somehow when you're focusing on being true, all that external fluffy decorative stuff doesn't seem so important anymore. You want to take time to go deeper, to be more focused, to experience and share and give and celebrate. You want to help others to that place you're headed too.

It's hard when you've got a 10 year old kid who is looking forward to a pile of presents under the tree. It's tough to get his focus off what he's getting and on to where God is. It's a gradual growing that has to take place, a weaning from past practices and a refocusing, a training of the mind to think outside the (Christmas) box.

Last year for the first time we got to attend a Christmas morning service. The church I grew up in didn't have one. It started the day off on a completely different slant. It gave an incredible focus to the rest of Christmas, with glorious sounds and an intimate message still ringing in the ears. Everything else started to fade into the background.

This year we're doing it again. A God-start to the day is what my soul and spirit craves. We're going to seek out a Christmas eve service too. We're going to take time to be with God, more than the usual get-up-open-presents-eat-until-you-can't-move routine. Christmas is going to be different this year.