Last night my friend Mark and I went out in search of a post Thanksgiving meal at whatever restaurant was open.  (It ended up being White Castle, but that is another story for another day).

While we were out we drove by Providence Marketplace (local mall) to watch shoppers out in the post Thanksgiving pre Black Friday shopping extravaganza.  It was around 8PM and the Best Buy was already packed with a line.  I think the manager was letting people in gradually.  As I watched people coming out with large screen TVs I was somewhat disgusted at the whole thing.  Were these people buying items for others for Christmas?  Likely not.  Rather it was for their own (read selfish) enjoyment.

There’s the old cliche of being thankful for what you have then going out and fighting other consumers for the best deal Thanksgiving evening or on Black Friday.  But somehow seeing it person magnified the whole situation.  Running in to buy TVs at a slight discount to watch and wear out in a few years.  Rinse, Repeat.

Two events in my childhood make me remember the sprit of giving in the holiday season. It also reminds me of how fortunate we are.
During 4th and 5th grade in my Sunday School class, we would collect food for needy families. Then during a certain Saturday we would deliver the food to families in the area. Afterwards we were treated to a free meal at Staggs’ Pharmacy. Strangly enough I don’t remember too much about the families we delivered to.
At the time my church had about 300 members, so sitting a large cylinder for food collection outside in the foyer wasn’t all that much trouble. Sure, it had to be emptied ever so often, but it certainly wasn’t all that big of a deal. Now the church has around 700+ members. We have our own food room year round, so the collection of food by 4th and 5th graders has somewhat lost its importance. I’m not sure which was more important.: The delivery of the food to the needy, or the lesson it taught us in collecting and distributing it. I suppose the food delivery was somewhat of a band aid remedy for the needy.
Also in 4th grade my class at school “adopted” a needy family for the holiday season. I guess it helped that the family had kids our age. Throughout the month of December we collected food and toys for the family. Then on a particular night, the entire class plus some room mothers went over to personally deliver the goods to the family. Let me tell you, it was awkward. The parents were, of course, slightly embarrassed to have to accept a handout so their kids could have a decent Christmas. Their house had no carpet and was somewhat dark inside. The father had a job which he had to walk to each day. I wonder what happened to that family. I wonder if the cycle of poverty continued with the kids, perhaps dropping out of school and having to take low end jobs. I guess I could hope they somehow got out of this depressing cycle.
Two things come to mind in remembering this. One is that families in poverty need help year round, and not just in the Christmas season when somehow we are feeling generous. Also this help shouldn’t just be a band-aid. These people need job skills. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; Teach a man to fish and he will eat forever.
The 2nd thing is that the act itself was a lesson for me at a young age. These families probably don’t remember who gave them food during December of 1984. However here it is 21 years later and I still remember the act.

Birthdays have become less about receiving gifts, and more about a celebration of life. I always dreaded turning 30. But it really isn’t that bad. I’m older and wiser. I’ve grown alot in the past year. I know I’ve got more growing to do. We all do at times.
I’ve had a good life. And I expect good things to come in the future.

For me Christmas had been about receiving gifts. I can remember getting together with friends to compare who got the best gift. And for some reason someone always had something better. No matter how good of a Christmas I thought I had, someone always one upped me.
This year Christmas became less about getting things and more about love and the joy that we get when we give gifts to someone. Ellen taught me that. I gave her a dancing Elmo doll. Seeing the joy and excitment on her face when she saw Elmo sing its song was enough for me. Her face lit up. Her excitment in opening gifts and maticulously giving away the strips of wrapping paper was joy to me. That was enough.

Christmas was always more special when you’re a kid. You’d always get more presents. There was much more excitement with the anticipation of Santa’s arrival and his subsequent leaving presents. It was something magical in my youthful mind. I never could figure out exactly how and when the presents were left. Sometimes I’d get up in the middle of the night and see if Santa had come. Most of the time he hadn’t yet. And I didn’t want to jinx it by even looking, figuring Santa would know if I had gotten out of bed to look. Insomina on Christmas Eve was a global phenomenon among Christian youth. I could never sleep. And sometimes I’d get up at 5:30AM to see what Santa had left. Then it was up to my dad to put the toys together.
Santa always left 2 stacks of toys…one for me and one for my sister. It usually wasn’t hard to tell the difference, even without nametags. And I always wondered how my friends…with multiple same-sex siblings, figured out who’s Santa gifts were who’s. I guess that’s where nametags come in…vital for large families.
My mom kept many of my letters to Santa. She stores them in scrapbooks somewhere, along with any of them that were printed in the local paper. Which reminds me, I completely missed any letters written to Santa which were printed in the Lebanon Democrat. Do they still do this anymore?

When exactly did Christmas become the big holiday among the Christians? Seems to me that Easter is more important than Christmas. Which is more important in the grand scheme of things? That my Savior was born or that He died for my sins? Yet somehow in many cultures…news outlets….etc….Easter barely gets much of a mention…only during the weekend between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Yet Christmas is constantly put in our minds for the entire month of December and part of November. Is it the gift giving phenomenon? Why are we constantly pestered to find the best deals and to shop until we drop.
I don’t consider December 25th as the birth of Christ. There is no evidence to show this. Why do we as humans try to pinpoint the day at a specific date? Each and every calendar day is a gift from God. So why shouldn’t we remember His birth, life, and death 365 days a year?
I consider Christmas as more of a cultural holiday….not necessarily national since it has spread over many nations. I hate to downgrade it to the same status of Halloween or Valentine’s Day, but in my mind it probably is, yet with much more importance since we associate it with annual family visits.
I have heard of people making a birthday cake for Jesus this time of year. This is completely foreign to me. And I’m not even sure it’s what Jesus would want. And I’ve also heard of people attending midnight worship services. This never happened to me growing up. Never did I attend church on Christmas, unless it happened to fall on a Sunday or Wednesday. A while back Christmas did fall on Sunday, and many churches were canceling their worship services. Their reasoning was that church members family gatherings were more important than the church services. This runs completely foreign to what is explained in the Bible.

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters�yes, even his own life�he cannot be my disciple.”
Luke 14:26

“Hate” in this context is relative to a Christian’s required love of God. Our love for God should be so strong, then compared to our love for our family should look like hate. Hence service and devotion to God should be first and foremost in our mind, with devotion to family should run a close second.
Yet I do believe that sometimes the church group I belong to is afraid to study the birth of Christ. We somewhat downgrade it, not really wanting to talk about it much, especially around December for fear that someone might get the wrong idea. We should be enraptured with it. We should be amazed that God would send His Son to earth and to be born in such a lowly manner. In a horse barn. Not some glorious entrance as one would expect.

Oh yeah. Halloween. One of my favorite childhood holidays. It was one of those strange customs where you get to dress up in funny costumes and your neighbors give out free things. The whole concept seemed awfully alkward, or at least a bit strange especially in this day and time, where we don’t know our neighbors. Parents always tell you don’t take candy from a stranger, yet on Halloween it seems ok to take candy from your neighbor who you barely know.
I think parents were afraid of drug dealers who might put drugs in candy. I never exactly heard of anything like that happening. At least not in Halloween candy. My parents always warned me not to go to certain houses in our neighborhood because of this fear.
So ironically it was fear that has downgraded Halloween to a shell of what it once was. That and people who equate Halloween as some devil’s holiday. In reality you can make anything evil. Christmas, if taken the wrong way…say being greedy for more and more presents…could be made evil.
I really liked Halloween, but I never really had a cool costume. Once I was a ghost. Another time it was one of those lame commercial Snoopy costumes. I really should have started planning for Halloween at least a month before, and not the day before. Then there were always those teachers who would assign a load of homework on Halloween. Shame on them.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
First Amendment, U.S. Constitution

So while we celebrate with fireworks and barbeques, I’m sure that there are some of those out there who would rather not have freedom of speech as it stands today. Or to put it another way, they would like to squelch others’ freedom of speech because they don’t agree with them. Lately I’ve become incredibly aware of this injustice.
Yes, there are barriers and limits to freedom of speech. Yelling “Fire!” in a crowded movie theater. Threaten the life the the president. Stuff like that you can’t do.
But we need to be acutely aware that…yes, there are people out there who will disagree with your opinion. Your duty isn’t there to squelch their opinion, but to actually weigh the pros and cons of said opinion. Offer a better opinion….a better solution to a problem. Just don’t silence the messenger. For by silencing the messenger you have become the monster we have fought so hard against…in World War II, any conflict with the Communists, the war on Terrorism. The enemies we fought against during these 3 conflicts had one thing in common: Tyranny that keeps people from speaking against the government or those individuals in power.
New and different opinions are what makes this country the best and brightest nation on earth. Freedom to say whatever you want and not be threatened by it should be the fundamental right of every man.
So fly the flag this 4th. Then be sure to ask yourself if you really support the freedom of speech so fundamental to our society, even when you disagree with the speech presented.
Related story: Bloggers can’t be sued for libel.

I guess I should be grateful to be able to unwrap undershirts and curtains (?) for Christmas, when many poor families don’t have anything to unwrap. And don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful. However I never really understood why my family seems to get me more “practical” gifts rather than “fun” gifts. It was my fault for not asking for anything specific.
I’ve come to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter what you got for Christmas. If you’re about bragging to your friends about the stuff you got for Christmas, chances are they got something bigger and better. So you’re better off keeping your mouth shut and to be thankful for what you’ve got.
Since it’s Wednesday night, we’ve got church tonight. I suppose everyone will be wearing their new clothes they got for Christmas. Not me.
The mass media has us fooled. Pre-printed Christmas day editions of the Tennessean. Taped Today Show segments. I must admit they had me fooled for a while. They should rename the Christmas Day Today Show to “Two Weeks Ago Show” since that’s when it was probably taped. We don’t expect Matt “Almost Bald” Lauer and Katie “Colonoscopy” Couric to come into work on Christmas Day.

On the Wonder Years whenever they’d have a flashback, they’d show old home movies of the family. What I never really understood was who was operating the movie camera when both parents were in the shot? I always suspected it might be the older daughter, but even sometimes she is in the shot. Was there some unseen grandmother who operated the movie camera? These unanswered questions have always plagued me.
My family is bugging me to get my Christmas list together. The only problem is that my wants and needs are abstract. I’ve give you some examples.

• A job. It sounds so simple and straightforward. But it is so difficult. There’s a certain amount of sigma attached to not having a job and looking like a bum. Maybe something will happen sometime.
• Guaranteed Extra Time when I need it. For example if I need to take off for this mission trip to El Salvador, I should be able to without invoking penalties against me. Same way with church camp in the summer time. But I’ve found you can’t always get what you want.
• Installation of Moveable Type on my website. This seems like such a bear to take on. I would love to be able to use this program, but I am not exactly sure how to install it.
• Once Movable Type is installed, somehow convince David Shannon and the other church office workers on how to update the website easily. I’m not holding my breath on that one. It would be so much better if I wouldn’t have to update the church webpage every week. Leave it to the people who actually put together the bulletin.
• Better singing at church. Not everyone is willing to sing. I wish we could persuade some people to sing more and louder. 550+ people should sound much louder and fuller than what is it.
• More friends. I know that friendship is something you have to work at. You aren’t just granted friends automatically. At times I feel like a social misfit because of my lack of close friends.
• Somehow convince those making ski trip decisions to go to North Carolina instead of Paoli. That’ll never happen.

That’s really all I want to for Christmas. I already have enough clothes. Tivo records all the movies that I would want, so don’t buy me any video tapes. Video game systems are over rated. A new stereo would never be used. So like I said. Material things don’t excite me.