Christmas or Giftmas

Christmas is almost here and I can’t wait for it to be over with. It is sad that I am not excited about this holiday, but I can’t help it. I love it but it has turned into a mad dash to get everyone a gift, it has lost its focus. I know, I know, everyone talks about the “true meaning of Christmas.” In fact my daughter has a Veggie Tales video about the same theme, but really what are we doing? Christmas becomes so stressful because of the gifts. Everywhere I went this week people asked me “Are you ready for Christmas?” Meaning “do you have all of the stressful ridiculous shopping finished?” As a matter of fact, my wife did most of the shopping, but she transformed our dining room table into a gift wrapping central, and has been wrapping gifts since Thanksgiving. It is too much.

I propose we make an entirely new holiday separate from Christmas. We could call it Giftmas. It would make all of the department stores happy because people could still go crazy buying things. In fact I am even willing to concede December 25 to Giftmas. Maybe we could more Christmas to the summer sometime (which is when Jesus was actually born). Christmas should be more like Thanksgiving to me. Thanksgiving is a great holiday. All you do for Thanksgiving is get together with family and friends, eat a lot and watch football (if you like football). It is great, there is so much less stress. Sure there is the stress of cooking, which Christmas has anyways, but there is no “what should we get so-and-so, or you-know-who.” It gets crazy with the gifts. You know the awkward feeling you get when you spent about ten dollars on a gift for someone and they bought you something for fifty. It is awful. I want to skip it every year. I like getting gifts and giving them, but I don’t like the gift game.

So that is why I am advocating a moving Christmas and calling December 25 Giftmas. Maybe then we can make Christmas a religious holiday again since it has been besieged by secular advocates like the ACLU and others who are trying to take Christmas away from the Christians. One point that some people bring up is the Christmas was made December 25 because there was a pagan holiday on that day and the leaders of Rome wanted to replace it with a Christian holiday. I think it is time to give it back to the pagans. Let’s move Christmas and make it a purely religious holiday again. No more Christmas vacation, Christmas trees, Christmas lights, snowmen, Santa Clauses etc. It will just be about Jesus coming to this world with the ultimate goal of redeeming us who were lost. That’s what I want for Christmas—Jesus, and only Jesus.

So Merry Christmas to you and yours. Enjoy the holiday, whatever it means to you. Enjoy the company of your family, and try not to stress out about the gifts, they are only material gifts, the best gift is the gift of life from our Lord Jesus Christ.