The Best Way to Spread Christmas Cheer

The best way to spread Christmas Cheer…

Is by sending out your Christmas Cards so late it’s nearly next year.

Right?

Yeah, probably not.

As we finally enter Christmas week, I’m needing a bit of perspective.  Because for the past few weeks, my head’s been spinning with Christmas activities and Christmas parties and Christmas Plays.  In case you haven’t noticed, Christmas is a big thing when your family is in church ministry, which is great mostly but definitely overwhelming at times.  There’s also been Christmas shopping for family and friends and teachers and everyone in between.  Which then means midnight wrapping parties for one and realizing that no matter how much of that beautiful satin gift wrap tape you buy, it will just never be enough and you’ll have to resort to small strips of clear packaging tape.

And amidst all of the going ons, there’s that silly nagging feeling of if I bought enough for everyone and if they will like it and knowing that Christmas is way more meaningful than presents, but also knowing that presents seem to always be a big part of the stress of it all.  So I brainstorm and I shop and I try so very hard to get everything just right.

And yet, I know.

I know that Christmas is more than all of that.  That for our family, it’s about celebrating Jesus and his birthday.  It’s not about all of our silly wants, but it’s all about about getting just what we always ever needed.  A Savior.  That thrill of hope, when this weary world was exhausted, distracted and hopeless.

So tonight, in between frantically searching for addresses and sticking stamps on crisp and clean white envelopes, knowing that my poor Christmas cards will be delivered quite late this year, I’ll quiet my heart.  I’ll hum along to beloved Christmas tunes and pray that God will calm these distracting anxieties.  I’ll remind myself that the best way to spread Christmas cheer, is to focus on the beauty that surrounds this season.  The love, the hope, the gift of salvation, all incarnate in a tiny baby Savior, born in the most humble of circumstances.

Merry Christmas week.