Reason for the Season

Our focus often changes when the seasons, settings, events, and even circumstances alter our lives. My house this year before Thanksgiving was decked with pumpkins, chrysanthemums, various Fall colors and décor. Now the pumpkins and mums await the trash haulers while pines, twinkling lights, and colors of red and green decorate the house. It feels like we have somehow abandoned thanksgiving and launched into a commercial frenzy too often associated with Christmas. Some of the décor makes sense. On the other hand, inflatable Star War figures, Zombies wielding candy canes, and Disney characters in sleighs on front lawns just do not compute in my mind with the Christmas season. It is as if the season has morphed back to Halloween.

     I recall as a teenager how my focus at Christmas was dramatically altered by an event that took place in the summer between my Junior and Senior years of high school. Christmas prior to that time was when I focused upon stuff. Subtly was not my strong point! Months before the gift giving frenzy of Christmas morning, I strategically left well-marked catalogues on the counter where our incoming mail was sorted. Discussions around the supper table revolved around mentioning what was the current craze among my fellow classmates. I even bribed a friend to ask me when my mom was in earshot, “Hey, what do you want for Christmas?” After having manipulated as much as I could, I sat back and salivated as I anticipated the packages that would be placed under the Christmas tree near our stone fireplace.

     The Christmas of my Senior year of high school was different. My Mom had to ask me for some ideas about what gifts I wanted for Christmas. I remember saying, “Whatever you chose will be fine with me.” Was I maturing? Not on your life! I was still as immature as ever, controlled by raging teenage hormones, and lacking common sense. The only thing that was different I suppose was a new focus that changed the way I was looking at life and seeing what was most important to me.

     One Christmas Eve a major snowstorm shrouded our Philadelphia suburb in a deep blanket of white. I barely made it home from work and had to abandon my 56 Chevy on a side road near our house. I had to shovel a path to our driveway and made just enough room to get the car off the street. The house was warm, the aroma of Irish bread greeted me. Colorful lights of the Christmas tree reflected outside on the snow deeply piled against our living room windows. The Christmas tree was also buried - not in snow but in colorful packages! It was indeed a Currier and Ives picture.

     Mom and Dad told me as I headed upstairs for bed that after breakfast, we would be opening presents. I asked if we could wait for that until after I got back from the service at a local church several blocks away. My parents glanced at one another with a quizzical expression. I had never gone to church on Christmas. I was too busy shredding paper wrapping, and giving the perfunctory remarks, “Gee, thanks! How did you know?” Their comment to my suggestion still lingers after all these years. “What for?”

     I don’t remember my response. As I think of a response now it would have been, “My focus has changed.” It indeed had because of what had transpired that summer at a Christian camp in the Adirondacks. I received the greatest of gifts that summer when I accepted the gift God offered of eternal life. No temporal gift could be greater. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciated the gifts around the tree in our living room. But my perspective and focus had been altered. I just wanted to take some time to think about the great gift God had given me through Jesus Christ. I wanted to praise Him. I wanted to remember that Christmas was really about an eternal gift come down at Christmas.

     The next morning, I ate breakfast with my parents. After bundling up in winter fare, I followed the tire tracks in the unplowed streets. I wondered if anyone else would be at the Christmas service. Several doors of the church were blocked by the snow that slid off the steeply pitched slate roof. Once inside I was greeted by fellow worshipers who likely came to recognize the reason for the season. The eternal gift that God gave was festooned in swaddling clothes and placed in a humble manger. I don’t recall the hymn that was sung that began the service. An appropriate one could easily have been, “O Come Let Us Adore Him.” That is why I was there. I do remember this; a tear filled my eye - a tear of gratitude - for what I had received this past summer. An altered life looks at things differently. Still does. Focus over the years has sometimes become distorted. Thankfully a clear focus has always returned. May you have a wonderful Christmas this year focused upon the reason for the season. What a gift God gave!