Dreaming of a White Christmas

Well I bet I'm not the first to use the above blog title - but why be original when you can use a perfectly good existing idea? I don't expect to see any snow here, but you can dream...

I guess many of us will be munching through copious amounts of turkey, battling with the cranberry sauce jar, trying to resist eating too many pickled onions, avoiding an excess of sprouts, opening presents, playing games and watching movies.

There will of course be some of us coping with a dozen lords leaping through our living rooms whilst trying to shoo out a pile of maids, milk and cows, attempting to not be trampled by a host of ladies dancing and hoping that the menagerie of creatures in the kitchen won't make too much of a mess!

Whose wild idea was it to have all these things for Christmas, I'd happily do with a new CD or DVD, but no we have to have twelve partridges to go with twelve drummers drumming, twenty-two turtle doves and as many pipers piping, thirty french hens being leapt over by an equal number of lord, thirty-six calling birds presumably providing the music for the dancing ladies, forty gold rings perhaps to be given to the forty maids a milking, and of course forty-two swans and geese. And they think we go overboard at Christmas today!!

I'm sure there may be some significance in all these different gifts, but I'm happy to celebrate Christmas in moderation remembering the greatest gift to all mankind, the birth of Jesus into our world. We remember that God so loved the world that he sent his son, Jesus, to live a human life, die a human death and rise a resurrected human - all to pay for the sins that we couldn't pay for ourselves and to be made children of God.

The one through whom all things were made squeezed himself into the tiny form of a baby and lived a humble life, sharing our lot, so that if we would believe in him we could someday share his lot in heaven - an amazing thought indeed!

As you're eating your turkey, nut-roast or whatever, as you're opening your presents, as you're playing games, don't get all religious, but do remember to thank him for the most incredible gift ever.

God bless you and have a great Christmas.

Steve