This time of the year can be one of great excitement, joy or depression. It all depends on what is happening in your life. Are you sharing the true meaning of Christmas?
To people who do not have financial worries this time of the year is truly joyous. It is a wonderful feeling going to the stores and looking for gifts for your family and friends. It is a great feeling to pull out your list and checking it twice of all the notes for what people in your life have mentioned they would “love to have” throughout the year. Your smile widens at the thought of them opening your gift.
But, there are those people who are wondering if they are going to be able to make their next mortgage payment and how they are going to buy food to feed their children or themselves. This can really cause depression at this time of the year. I personally know how it feels not to be able to buy gifts for the people I love. You can come through the month of December feeling like a failure and very, very sad.
Maybe you have experienced dealing with a less than congenial sales person or cashier. Instead of rewarding their less than appropriate attitude with one of indifference I end up asking myself what could be going on in their life. Are they feeling badly watching all the money that is being spent and wishing they only had maybe twenty dollars that they could spend on a gift for their spouse or child? Cashiers in grocery stores may be wishing they could afford to buy the makings of a traditional Christmas dinner.
Even if you are in the position of not have enough money to splurge on Christmas with the gifts and all the decorations, I am sure you can find something to be thankful for. Healthy children, a spouse that loves you and is by your side, a job, or even a part-time job …. These are just a few blessings.
I can remember one year after I was divorced that I did not have money to buy my girls Christmas gifts. They “needed” new nightgowns and that was the only gift I could wrap and put under the tree. In addition to the wrapped nightgowns under the tree, I sat down and wrote each of my daughters a note telling them how much I loved them and how important they were to me. I told them that I was sorry I could not give them more but I was giving them the greatest gift I had … ALL of my love! And I hung the notes on the Christmas tree.
So as you are going through this hectic time I hope you will try to have compassion for the less fortunate people around you. And for people you don’t know an outstretched hand, hug or simple Merry Christmas could do a great deal to lift that feeling of depression.
Many years ago I wrote the following and every year around this time I like to share it. I hope you will take a few minutes from your busy schedule to read it.
The title is, “The Greatest Gift”.
As the last faint sounds of Christmas carols fade off in the distance, and the water begins to chill around your ankles as you soak your aching feet …. What will you really recall about Christmas? What was the greatest gift?
I honestly believe that if a poll was taken as to the true meaning of Christmas, “receiving/buying gifts” and “Santa Claus” would rank as the most often answered.
Will a smile of love and appreciation cross our faces in the midst of scurrying around to find a bigger and better present for sister Sally than what brother Joe will give her; hunting down the fullest and tallest tree, and decorating our dwellings. Will we remember the real purpose of this Holiday Season, the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ? Will we stop to ponder about that baby in the manger and how His life and death has brought meaning to our lives? His life was an example of the way we are to live. He loved us so very much that He was obedient to the end, even unto death on a cross.
We seem to get so caught up in the materialistic outlook of life we lose touch with the most important gift we have to give, not only at Christmas, but every day of our lives. That gift is the gift of love. Not love as the world knows it, but as Jesus Christ lived it. Instead of, or in addition to, decorating the outside of our dwellings, we should decorate the inside of our “temples”. We should take Christmas out of our pocketbooks and put it back in our hearts!
Reach out and help that one person others may look at as repulsive. Maybe before the economy took the dive it did that person was a corporate CEO. Take a minute and ask yourself, “Are you sharing the true meaning of Christmas?”
I wish your and your family a blessed Christmas,
Judy
