Christmas is for children.
What matters is that the children get Christmas.
I can't afford to buy my children Christmas.
It doesn't matter if we get the adults anything; just buy the children Christmas.
I guess my children won't have a Christmas, without money.
These sentences betray how we see this season. This all can be explained by all the TV and Internet commercials aimed at drumming up business that play on our emotions and our loved for our children, our nieces and nephews, our grandchildren, or children in general. These sentiments can be explained by department stores which re-stock their shelves, even before Thanksgiving and pitch their ads toward would-be Christmas shoppers. To a lesser degree, such TV, Internet and store ads are similarly directed toward lovers. In other words, show your love for those you love by buying them nice maerial goods.
Why is the materialistic thrust and festivities of this holiday season focused on children?
Children are vulnerable and trusting, and this holiday season provides something of an outlet to show care for them in the only way many people know how to show love.THat form is that of giving material gifts. I know of these things by experience so I know of what I speak!
When I was growing up, my mom and later my stepdad, believed that giving material things was the way you show love to your children. They did not have much money but spent what they had, on Christmas gifts. The side-effect of this is that I, for one, had to unlearn and still am unlearning, materialism that is already embedded in our culture. With my family dynamics, this materialism is being passed down to my daughter. I know that my story is far from unique; so many other families conceive of love as the giving of material gifts.
Yes, giving gifts is one way of showing people that we love them. So it is not so much that giving gifts is wrong because it is not. It is the focus on giving gifts and making a holiday season about giving gifts. There is much lip service that "Christmas is about giving, not getting presents," and "As long as we have our loved ones, we have it all" and "Jesus is the reason for the season." With all these sayings, however, Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, Cyber-Monday, (the Monday of the following week), and Super Saturday (Dec. 19), show that buying gifts is still an important part of this holiday season. So I can undersand why a growing number of people, usually for religious reasons, do not celebrate these holidays at all! It is not that they are Scrooges and lack "holiday spirit," but realize that so many of us have gotten our priorities messed up.
Christmas is for children and I do not want to take that away from anyone. The holiday season should be a happy time for children and they should grow up with good memories of how it was celebrated when they were growing up. But if they see that ther parents do not take care pf each other or themselves and end up having nothing left to give, is this of benefit to them? I don't think so.
I think many, maybe most, people are aware that the Christmas season officially set aside to commemorate the incarnation and birth of Jesus. The incarnation covers His time in Mary's womb, during his development as an unborn child. Think of it--God as an embryo and then a fetus! Christmas, of course, is meant to commemorate His birth. We do not know the exact time when He was conceived and nine months later, born. The most important point is why He became a man.
God became man in Jesus because He loves us and wanted to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. All of us have fallen far short of His holy standards in thought, word and deed, and cannot save ourselves. So God came to earth, in Jesus, lived the perfect human life that none of us can live. Then He died in our place, on a cross, the death that we all have deserved, and has risen again. Have you received His free gift of salvation, the forgiveness of your sins? It is not hard to understand how to make it happen. Repent (change your mind about your sins and turn from them) and believe (trust that Jesus has died to save you and give Him your life).
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