Christmastide Huntsville Missouri 2018

After my divorce, I found it very difficult to be happy at Christmas. Even though I was pagan, we celebrated a holiday at Christmas time called Yule. Many of our current Christmas traditions come from that pagan holiday. Things such as drinking wassail or eggnog, eating ham, decking the halls with greenery, even gift giving stem from Yule. So all through those years I was pagan I celebrated Christmas in a fashion. When I returned to Christianity Christmas took on a new meaning. It was the birth of my Savior Jesus Christ. Christmas symbolized leaving my sinful, pagan past behind, and looking forward to a life as a man reborn.

Those first few years as a Christian again, Christmas was all about the Christmas lights, Christmas dinner, Christmas carols, and giving gifts. I enjoyed helping decorate Downtown Huntsville for Christmas.I decorated the house for Christmas. I went around and looked at the Christmas lights. I listened to Christmas carols on my car stereo. Now, with a new job, new place, and new girlfriend I am finding I do not have time for many of those things. And you know what? I do not miss them. Many of these were things I also enjoyed as a pagan, and had little bearing on me as a Christian. They were just superficial trappings that come with a winter holiday. No, what I enjoy now is time with my church family, my friends, and my family. It is the sense of togetherness, of oneness with my Church and with Christ that brings me happiness. And it is not just that, it is also in the way I treat strangers.

You see, people behave differently at Christmas. It is the time for the highest giving to charities. It is the time when folks truly believe in Peace on Earth and try to practice Good Will to Men. People are kinder, gentler, and nicer to one another. Oh, you still get those rude individuals unhappy Wal-Mart is out of the toy their child wanted, or the one irked because someone got to "their parking space" before they did, but for the most part many people do do unto others as they would have them do unto themselves. And I am no different. My behavior changes. I treat people better as Christmas approaches.

So what do we have to learn from this? The way many of us behave at Christmastide is the way we should behave year round. In essence, we as Christians should behave as if Christmas were every, single day of the year. We should be kind and considerate to our fellow man. We should not judge others. We should take time out of our day to be nice to those around us. We should attend church. Think of how nice the world around us could become if we just believed in Peace on Earth and Good Will towards Men everyday of the year?

Currently, it is my "weekend." I put weekend in quotation marks because my weekend comes in the middle of the workweek, I work the weekend shift at my job. So I am spending this last "weekend" of mine before Christmas getting ready. Yesterday, I did the bulletins for the Last Sunday in Advent and the Christmas Eve services at the Huntsville United Methodist Church. I have planned out my last minute Christmas shopping. I am in the last stages of getting ready for my Savior's birthday. With Christmas Day all that work will end, but one thing I do not hope ends, is the joy I get from being kind to my fellow human beings whether they be Christian, Jew, Muslim, pagan, white, black, yellow... to me kindness is what being Christian is all about, and not just something we should do at Christmas time. We should act as if it is Christmas everyday with joy at the birth of our Savior, and the drive to be kind to others. I think everyone's New Year's Resolution should be, act as if everyday were Christmas, and carry the joy and kindness of the Christmas season throughout the year.