The Gift

As I sit here this Christmas season wrestling with the desire to give really fun gifts to my children and the limitations of financial ability to do so (I love to give good gifts to my children), I ponder and consider have I shifted the focus of Christmas?

I remember all our Christmas’ past, how I created in our home a somewhat magical time of Christmas decorating to the full extent, with lights in and out of the house, playing Christmas music each morning as the girls got ready for school, baking cookies, sleeping under the just decorated tree, going all out with the gifts oh and yes, remembering too that it was Jesus’ birthday.  But somehow this just did not seem to be the focus of our holiday season.

As I was getting a cup of coffee one morning looking up at the collection of Santa’s (which I have to admit I started as collections for my girls as well) around my kitchen up on the spaces above my kitchen cupboards God spoke and revealed to me a play on letters, which he often does to bring home a lesson.  I pass this on to you.

Santa is the icon of gift giving.  A beautiful concept and one which we all embrace and one which we are tempted to make the focus of Christmas, especially if you have a family of young children at this stage in your life or of young grandchildren who believe in Santa.  What a magical time of make believe and good.  But is it…?

Let’s take the word Santa and remove the N right out of the middle and put it in its place at the end of the word and Santa then reads Satan.  Now before you think I am evil by even thinking such a thought let us consider for a moment who and what Satan is.

Satan is the master deceiver, king of distraction and lover of lies.  What better way to distract than to come disguised as something good (gift giving is good) increasing focus on a man, an icon of gift giving to distract, named Santa.

I am not saying we must remove Santa from the scene.  I ran this thought by my daughter with two little ones and her response to me was “ Mom you can’t just take Santa out of the picture, I have such good memories of all that Santa represented from when I was a little girl”. 

So, I inquired of God asking what I was supposed to do with this concept that just seems downright mean.  While it seems a little drastic to completely remove Santa from the Christmas scene what I heard was put him in his place, at the end of the celebration, as an after thought rather than in the middle of the season.

We have slowly been influenced by the world and Hallmark and marketing strategists to worship the idol of “gift giving”.  Think about this for a moment.  From the beginning of December we begin the mad rush to make our lists, check them twice, running around being grumpy and nice.  We put such pressure on ourselves to buy that “perfect” gift for everyone on our list that before we know it we are consumed with “gift giving”,  “party preparing” that in trying to do all this “good” we become grumpy, stressed out and downright…”evil” to those we love.

In a sense, instead of Jesus rising up in us, Satan rises up on us, on our backs, with his hands over our eyes blindly leading us into his trap.

“N” stands for Nothingness, in the middle of the holiday season it turns a celebration meant to embrace the most marvelous gift of all, Forgiveness born out of Love and turns it into nothingness, just another reason to consume and overindulge.  “N” also stands for Naivety, for a nation that is naïve and unaware of it’s idols and how it is being influenced by them.

Without taking Santa right out of Christmas let us wake up, seeing the clever disguise for what it is and rethink what our emphasis is putting the “N” of Santa where it rightly belongs…at the end of the word and in so doing recognize the deception and distraction Santa has become and reclaim for ourselves and our nation The Gift. Rather than worshipping the idol of “gift giving” worship The Gift, the one perfect gift given long ago on a cold winters night that was so deep, given by the true and perfect gift giver and true Father of Christmas, God Most High, Creator of Heaven and Earth.

(If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! Matthew 7:11 NIV)

And as the Santa in my picture has his focus on the star let us keep our focus this Christmas season on the star that leads us to The Gift….

Celebrate the child who is the light…..Merry Christmas to all and to all a peace filled life…..