Getting Ready for Christmas

This is the time of year when you’ll hear people ask, “Are you ready for Christmas?”  I know what they mean by that, of course, and so do you.  They mean things like, “Have you bought all the presents yet?”  “Have you gotten your Christmas cards out?”  “Have you got all the decorations up?”  “Have you got your travel plans made?”  They’re talking about all the stuff we seem to think we have to do to “get ready” for Christmas.

It struck me that this kind of “getting ready for Christmas” is strictly an adult thing.  When we were kids we didn’t have to do a bunch of stuff to “get ready” for Christmas.  Christmas just came.  And when we were kids, it couldn’t come soon enough.  We didn’t get the kind of high-tech toys kids get now, but we were just as happy with the stuff we did get.  And even if Grandma just got us clothes, we were still happy just to have Grandma there for Christmas.

When did that change?  And why?  Why do we feel that we have to do a bunch of stuff to get ready for Christmas?  It’s not that the stuff we do is bad or wrong or anything.  I do that kind of stuff, too (although to be honest, I don’t put much up for decorations.  That tends to be Wanda’s department).  But when we feel like we have to do all this stuff to get ready for Christmas, we run the risk of taking the joy out of Christmas.  Christmas becomes another thing we have to get through, rather than a time of hope and love and joy and peace.

So, at the risk of giving you one more thing to do, here’s how I’m going to suggest you get ready for Christmas:  pray.  Stop, take some time to yourself, and pray.  Say a prayer of thanks to God for the incredible thing God did for us by sending the Savior to earth.  Think about what an awesome thing it was for God to do that.  Think about what an incredible, undeserved gift that was and still is.  Thank God for the wonderful gift of salvation and eternal life that God gave us through the birth and death of the Savior.  Pray about all these things, and think about all these things.  “Ponder them in your heart”, as we’re told that Mary did.

I think that if we truly appreciate what God did for us at Christmas, we’ll find that everything els will fall into place.  And we won’t need to worry about all the stuff we have to do to “get ready for Christmas”.  We’ll be ready for Christmas in our hearts.  Which, after all, is where we’ll find God’s Holy Spirit.