Bah Humbug??

The kids all did Black Friday shopping today (last night?).  Even Daniel and Katie did their own version (really cute)!  So I am driving back from the post office thinking that I should feel bad because Corinne and I have done absolutely no Christmas shopping. But I don't.  I am not in any "Seasonal Spirit" either.  The past several months have been really hard financially and we just don't have funds for Christmas.  I realized today that I am indifferent to that.  My kids are well aware how much we love and care for them and are old enough (well maybe not Ben) to know that things are really sparse this year and I don't feel ashamed or bad that I can't lavish gifts on them.  Maybe I should?  Does this make me an ogre?  A Scrooge?  Well you are all entitled to an opinion.  I don't care.  Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ.  When that day was is irrelevant.  Here is the crux.  I am just so glad that He was born!!  His birth and finally death and resurrection are more important to me than the holidays and celebration of them.  Should they be celebrated?  Indeed!  My soul celebrates them daily!  I sin on a regular basis and know that I deserve to be punished.  I also know that God the only perfect judge deemed that a worthless soul like me had worth to Him.  So He became like me in human form and payed my price for my sins in a very horrible manner.  Is that celebration worthy?  It is to me!

So if our finances improve soon will Corinne and I go shopping?  Absolutely.  But not because my kids "deserve" to have Christmas.  It will be because we love them so much and we want to give them unearned gifts in the same manner that God so loved us that he became one of us and died for us.  That is Christmas.

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