Author: Robin Herman

I have such mixed feelings about Christmas. It’s so easy to get frustrated with the commercialism of it all. Now it’s stretched into the Thanksgiving holiday — Christmas shopping, sales, promotions. Businesses make employees work the holidays just to compete with the other guys. Just walk into a Lowe’s store and walk down the main isle. Bright plastic lights everywhere. Jolly Santas at every turn.

I’ve proposed at Christmas work gatherings that we just take a $20 bill and pass it around from person to person with a hearty “Merry Christmas” and I always get a strange look.

Stress — that’s how I define Christmas. Pressure to find the right gifts, get cards out, decorate the house, decorate the business. Do I say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays? Ugh! Christmas has taken on a life of it’s own. Nearly everyone celebrates Christmas — whether they believe in Jesus or not. They decorate their houses, buy gifts and take the day off. Why? because it’s Christmas!

I don’t know if Christmas will ever get back around to what it was supposed to be — a celebration of love and family in honor of Christ’s birth, and the miracle of miracles that happened that night. The display of faith that Mary and Joseph had was remarkable. Can we remember their example and bring a little of their faith into our own Christmas?

 Christmas has it’s own songs, colors, flavors and traditions. Christmas should be — can be — a special day, full of memories of childhood anticipation and being with family.