Holiday Pep Talk

I need a little pep talk.  The holidays are coming.  Without them, I am sure you, like me, have lists growing like weeds inside your head.  With them, you wonder if weeds can choke out weeds.  I believe they can, but with a little forethought, can we decide what chokes?

Thanksgiving is next, but I’ve “missed” Christmas before.  How?

“I executed Christmas without actually experiencing it. I decorated my house for the celebration of His birth. I talked about Him. I listened to songs about Him. I saw things that represented Him in my home. I made a cake for Him. I even read about Him.......to my children. However, I don’t think I ever really entered in. I didn’t make time to enter in, to ponder, to reflect. And I regret it. Immensely. I feel I suffered the consequences for days before I realized my sin. I made my choices every day, the main one being execution instead of experiencing which forced me to land on the other side of Christmas empty.

What will I do next year? The thing is, there’s no magic formula. There is no “Jesus is the Reason for the Season” list I will check off next year and how absurd would that be anyway? It’s my choice of how I spend the hours that make up the season. It’s my choice whether or not I want to include the “execution of Christmas” on my list of “pass on’s” to my kids instead of the “experience of Christmas”.”

So that’s my pep talk to myself~ three years ago.  And I’ve gone back to it often to remember how empty just the execution can be.  All the pretties, all the the work, all the food, all the activities/traditions-- hollow and unsatisfying without the experience of Him.    “Better” always looks good to me-- and fun-- and do-able, even special,  but I’ve got to choose the best over the better.

As my list, the execution, starts forming, may it not choke out the experience of Him this Thanksgiving and Christmas season.