Keep Your Mind on What Matters During the Holidays

With Black Friday looming last week, I spent a significant amount of time surfing through ads, trying to find the very best deals on the presents I would get for my kids and my lovely wife. This inevitably led to scheming about how I would outsmart or outmuscle the early morning crowds to secure the perfect gift. Along the way, I found myself catching glimpses of the things I wanted, too, and hoping that my wife would pick the right one. Before long, I couldn’t even focus on Thanksgiving. I had bigger fish to fry, bigger deals to reel in. Yeah, yeah, being grateful is good and all, but, if I planned things out well enough, I could come home Friday morning with a bounty of the best presents. I would be a hero come Christmas morning, I mused. 

I’ll admit it here and now: I got sucked into all the things about Christmas that don’t matter. And it was ruining my holidays.

Luckily, my wife brought me back down to earth after Thanksgiving dinner in her forthright way. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I was getting caught up in all of this so I could be the best gift-giver around. It had become a form of self-aggrandizement. Also, I was slipping in a few items that I really wanted- and maybe my kids would like them, too. Somehow, I had turned what was supposed to be an act of Christian love and appreciation into an act of selfishness. Funny how we do that sometimes.

So I rethought all my grand gift-giving plans. Like Scrooge and Charlie Bailey before me, I reconsidered what the true meaning of Christmas is. And I made a big attitude adjustment. I would not let the retailers dictate my holiday cheer. Rather, I would make my actions reflective of the Man we celebrate at Christmas. I thought about a neighbor of mine who has been unemployed for several months now and recently lost his car. I thought about others in similar situations. I thought about my wife and what would truly make her happy. And I resolved to do something- something real- to help these people and to somehow lift their burdens.

This is my new mission for the holidays. Anyone can buy a video game. But it takes real Christian love to give a real gift.