True Meaning of Christmas

Christmas Time already? Well, not quite, but almost. Christmas is like my all time favorite holiday. I love all the lights! I love the music! I love the tree! (After all the work is done) I love spending time with family! I love Christmas in general. What I don't like is how commericalized Christmas has become. Its all about the bigger and better presents. What happened to simplicity. I was reading one of my message boards recently and absolutely loved the idea from one of the ladies on there. I am going to copy and repost a modified version of it here:

We do Santa.. but now only on small scale due to the premise of " naughty list." (Items deleted here to protect her kids) According to Santa and all the songs about him he gives according to how " good " you are. Santa only does stockings at our house. We as our kids parents give our kids Christmas gifts because of Love and Grace.. not because the kids are good. In this we hope to show the gift of love to our kids even when they don't " deserve" it just like God gave us the gift of salvation when we didn't deserve it either. This is a lesson that I had to learn because my son cannot change so I have to change my thinking. I was quite frustrated with my child's (changed) issues around Christmas when I thought about being naughty.. and Santa etc.. and would get upset because he/she really didn't "deserve" to get the big gifts from Santa... but then it came on my heart that I didn't deserve it either and what right did a worldly fictional character have to take away the grace and Love that God already gave him/her.

I know she was referring to her kids, but what I really liked was her take on it all. (Her kids have issues that they can not help. They were born with them.) Santa is okay, but doing just a stocking from him means all the children receive. Kids should receive gifts from their parents. I know we too have gone WAY overboard with this gift giving concept (Santa and us), but I am not liking it now. They come to expect it. We have scaled back for the last few years and we are scaling back again this year. My daughter is going to be surprised when she realizes how scaled back we are going this year. I think the best part of the writers topic is how she relates gift giving to the way God gave us his son Jesus to die on the cross. Now, isn't Jesus really the whole meaning for the season. It shouldn't be about getting, but giving. I hope I can clearly get this through to my daughter. We are scaling back for many reasons, but seriously, I want her to understand the meaning behind Christmas and understand truly that it is about Jesus and family and getting to spend good time together. That's what its all about. It is not all about presents!