Christmas Grace by Sandra DeVera & Angel Alderson
You’re either shopping, cleaning, decorating, wrapping, baking . . . or worried that you aren’t going to get those things and a million others done by Christmas. Our encouragement is simple, practical, and heartfelt: snap out of it! Do not go gently into that long, "’Twas the Night before Christmas!" Fight the Fa-La-La-La-La! ‘Tis Not the Season to be Jolly! It is the season to celebrate that God, in His grace, would give to undeserving humanity a Savior. It is a time to ponder the immeasurable love shown when an infinite Creator willingly lets His noble deity be packaged in a helpless, human infant body under the most ignoble circumstances. God gave us His Son as a gift, knowing Jesus would die for us that we might live eternally with God. Christmas is all about grace and yet it is so easy to let worldly expectations for the season suck all the grace right out of our hearts and homes.
Now, those of you who know us know we are crazy about Christmas. Angel cooks like she might feed the world. Sandy starts playing Christmas music in November and can’t be convinced to give it a rest until Twelfth Night. We’re as goofy about garlands and silly about stockings as anybody so we’re not saying be bah-humbug about holidays. In fact, it is because we do "all the trimmings" that we know how easy it is to lose sight of the grace we should be extending to others. Here are the four best presents we could give you through this month’s Encourager.
- Be clear with your children what your honest expectations are for the holidays. The media creates with color and gauze filters an expectation of the Norman Rockwell family get-together where all faults and human foibles fade in the glow of peace on earth, goodwill towards men. Sometimes the reality of flawed people operating under the influence of post-modern worldviews confuses children. Make sure your children know what’s true and what’s important to you about Christmas. There isn’t a child on the planet who doesn’t treasure their parents’ love, attention, and encouragement more than any present they ever got in a box.
- Pray daily for wisdom and creativity to make the most of each day. The joy and freedom of what Christ has done for us isn’t just to be celebrated on the 25th of December. While Advent calendars are fun, sometimes we let the build-up and hype of "only so-many days left until Christmas" transform a single day into something too great to ever meet expectations. The day after Christmas can be a tremendous let-down, with everyone thinking "364 shopping days until next Christmas" and missing the fact that December 26 is every bit as valid a day to remember that Jesus is alive and coming again as every other day.
- Our senses are God-given blessings and the holidays are a wonderful time for our favorite tastes, scents, sounds, colors, and fabrics. But too much sensory stimulation will melt even the best trained child into a sticky mass of misbehavior. An overload of sugar, caffeine, and rich proteins (the trinity of holiday cooking) can create migraines in adults and hyperactivity in children (which are two things that should never be combined). Add to that radical changes in sleep patterns and visitors you are trying to impress and chaos will ensue. We’ve seen over-stimulated children vibrate off their chairs while trying their hardest to sit still. You’re the parent, so it falls to you to make sure people go to bed, drink their water, take their vitamins, and have their own space.
- Remember: the spiritual forces at war against believers in this world want to undermine and discredit your peace and freedom in Christ. If the media can convince you that you are a failure if your decorations don’t look like the cover of a magazine, that you are a poor hostess if you aren’t confined to your kitchen, that your family won’t be happy if they don’t have the same presents under the tree as the neighbors - they’ve won. Our challenge is to show caring, and contentment and calm in the face of a Holly, Jolly, Xmas and there’s nothing better than to do it as a family, united in the only true Spirit of Christmas - the Holy Spirit.