I am not a parent, but I do know what it’s like to want to make someone I love happy. I love Christmas. I love the cold weather and the warm sweaters. I love the songs and the lights and the decorations, and I love the general emotion associated with the holiday season. Whether people realize or not, the whole world still stops to celebrate Jesus’ birthday.
But more and more, things are started to edge Jesus out of Christmas. And contrary to what many religious people seem to think, it’s not Santa Claus’s fault. It’s ours.
I couldn’t help myself. I heard on the radio today that the Disney Frozen Castle Playset by Mattel was going for nearly $700 on eBay now, because most stores are sold out. I found it on Amazon for $250, in case you’re looking for one. Why would this cheap piece of hinged plastic be worth $700? Well, because we–the American public–are willing to pay $700 to get it for our kids.
Don’t get me wrong. I adored the movie Frozen, and I love giving Christmas presents. I love that sense of anticipation I feel when I get to give someone something I know they’ll love. I turn into a giggling idiot on Christmas morning because I’ve filled the underside of our Christmas tree with weird and wacky gifts for the people I love most.
But Christmas isn’t about the gifts you get. It’s honestly not even about the gifts you give. And I’m afraid we’re teaching the next generation that giving and getting is all that matters. Any rational, thinking person can agree that Christmas isn’t about getting. But isn’t about giving?
No. Christmas isn’t about what we can give. It’s about what God gave–His Son. His only Son. So we could be free from sin, confident in the face of death, and live in peace with God.
Today’s verses are John 3:16-17.
For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.
We give to celebrate that God gave His Son. But we live in a world that tells us to buy everything our children want, and if we don’t, we’re bad parents. We live in a world of Black Fridays and Cyber Mondays, where people trample each other to get the last Tickle Me Elmo off the shelf (so creepy, by the way).
What message are we sending to our children? Heck, I don’t even have children, and I’m afraid of the self-centered nightmare of a world that is their inheritance.
How do you rise above it? How do you keep the focus where it needs to be? How do you do Christmas right, in a way that honors God and helps our children understand the sacrifice that Jesus made for them?
I don’t know. I can’t even claim to know the answer.
Is it wrong to give gifts to your children? No. Absolutely not. Give tons of gifts to your kids. Give them the things they ask for. Give them the But you can celebrate Christmas without being drawn into the materialism of our culture.
Kids learn by example. So if you place a lot of value on the things you buy, so will they. If you don’t appreciate the things you are given, neither will they. And if you make your Christmas all about the things you get or the things you give, they will too.
Instead, in your own heart, make Christmas about Jesus. Care more about what Jesus says and thinks about Christmas and giving and getting than what the world says. And even if you get your kid a crazy expensive hinged chunk of plastic with stickers on it, that’s great! That’s fine! But don’t make Christmas about the gifts. Make it about why you gave the gifts.
Always Peachy 