Christmas Craze

Christmas is around the corner again and the scent of Christmas has pervaded everything around us. But wait a minute, what is Christmas all about? Why do we celebrate it year in year out?
For little children, it’s a time to get new clothes. At least, if parents due to one constraint or the other could not afford to buy clothes for their kids earlier in the year, they must do so at this season. For some people it’s a time when you meet with friends you were unable to see during the year. The timing of Christmas creates a platform for a universal holiday; its overlapping into the New Year celebrations creates the perfect time to meet long unseen friends and acquaintances.
For some others it’s a time to eat and drink to their heart’s satisfaction. One of the prominent features of the yuletide celebrations is that there’s usually more than enough to eat and drink. People make sure they make adequate effort to see to it that they and their guests have enough to eat and drink during this season. Some even overdo this by depleting their limited resources.
Christmas, for some others, is a time to “count their blessings” or rather a time to show off what they have been able to buy in the course of the year, for instance what automobile they have been able to purchase in the outgoing year.
For others it’s a time to brag about what property they have been able to acquire during the year about to roll over. This puts many on a rat race to acquire things and this drive becomes more intense as Christmas draws near.
But, is Christmas really about any (or all) of these reasons? At Christmas, we commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ - the saviour of the world and the reconciler between God and the human race, through a certain Virgin called Mary in Bethlehem of Judea. At Christmas, we celebrate the coming of the God incarnate Emmanuel (God with us) to personally reconcile us to God the Father through His life, His death, subsequent resurrection and ascension into heaven.
In my own opinion, many people either don’t know what Christmas is all about or have outrightly misplaced their priorities concerning Christmas. I believe Christians should move from the superficial beliefs and celebrations to those things that are meaningful and have deeper spiritual meaning. A popular Christian writer, Dr Rick Warren once wrote “anything that does not have eternal value is eternally useless”. I want to encourage Christians the world over to make their Christmas this year and in subsequent years more meaningful and memorable by not losing sight of the actual reason we celebrate Christmas – the coming of Jesus Christ to save the world from sin and reconcile it back to God. I want Christians to make it their agenda to seek out the lost, to help the poor, to reach out to the helpless and also I want Christians to make it a time of profound worship to God for giving us the best Christmas gift of all time – His son, Jesus Christ.