Christmas already

Well I don't know about anyone else, but I have had an awful day. Well it wasn't that bad, but it was severely spoiled by the incessant looping of Christmas songs in the shops I went to today. Why is it that the secular celebration of Christmas becomes bigger and arrives earlier every year? Not only that but the fact that so many people no longer know the real meaning of Christmas.

Now I love Christmas, it is a time to get together with my family and have a lot of fun, there are presents and good food. But these things are not what I love about Christmas. Christmas is an especially busy period in my Church, we have the usual services and practices to attend, but we also have a mammoth carolling program. From the last weekend in November right through to Christmas Eve we will have at least 2 carolling events. And although they cause havoc in our daily lives and mean there is almost no free time this is the part of Christmas that I love.

There is such a sense of fellowship and fun in the band and choir and we are getting out into the community to celebrate Jesus. It is one of the few times of the year when the public actively seek us out to listen while we proclaim the good news. In this day and age it can be difficult to engage the public in a conversation about our faith, yet there is a magic about a band playing carols that pulls the crowds in and opens their hearts.

I am showing off here slightly, I have all my Christmas shopping done. It is normally something I leave right until the last moment, but this year I am organised well ahead of schedule. And while this does take the pressure off the time constraints that the Christmas period brings, it allows me time to think about what we are doing. We are all called to go out into the world and profess our faith, spread the news in all the world. If we can do that and spread some Christmas joy too then all the better. Jesus is a present that we should be offering to the whole world, lets go out over this Christmas period and remember for who the season was named for.