I couldn’t agree more. Julie and I have cut way back on the gifts this year. We plan on spending Christmas day with our family just rejoicing with each other and thanking God for His many blessings in our lives.

I feel like we’ve lost the true meaning of Christmas. I mean, you can’t even say Merry Christmas anymore in fear of offending someone.

I’ve started work towards my bachelors degree in business management. This semester my class was Intermediate Composition. One of the papers we had to do was called a visual argument; we had to tell our story using only pictures. I pulled a bunch of “holiday” pictures of the internet…all types including pictures of the nativity. I mingled the nativity pictures in with all the secular ones (a Christmas where’s Waldo). The night of our class we had to go around the room and give our impression of everyone’s picture. Not one person mentioned the nativity pictures. After that we had an opportunity to speak to the class about out picture. I was able to speak about the birth of Jesus Christ and what the means to me. IT WAS AWESOME!!

I absolutely refuse to allow this world to take the Christ out of Christmas…it doesn’t matter how politically incorrect anyone feels I might be. It’s not about the number of gifts we give or receive. It’s all about a little child, born of virgin, who came to this world for you and me. It’s all about His destiny….the cross. It’s all about a love so big…so awesome…words can’t even begin to describe. I’m on a mission to put CHRIST back into Christmas.

One thing that has become a tradition in our family is to participate in Operation Christmas Child through Samaritan’s Purse. Having my daughter prepare a box of gifts for another little girl generates so many good conversations as we shop, wrap, and pray over the contents of the box together!