The Meaning of Christmas

Chestnuts roasting by an open fire...

You better watch out, you better not cry...

Jingle bells, jingle bells...

Silent night, holy night...

In high school, I memorized Clement C. Moore's "Twas the Night before Christmas" for some odd reason. Funny thing is, I don't even believe in Santa Claus. I did as a child and he came to our house personally each year, making a surprise visit in a red, velvet suit and leather belt. He was the real deal. Or so I thought. On the year when I was six, I found out it had been a deception like none I had ever known. Santa wasn't real after all. Santa was my grandpa.

That year Christmas meant not all people tell the truth.

A few years later, my mom bought the most beautiful doll I had ever seen. She placed it on the shelf in her closet. I happened to see it one day, sitting up there in its unopened box, all by itself. I wasn't snooping. It was just there. I asked my mother why it was there and she said it was for my cousin-for Christmas. I didn't understand that. I had never had a beautiful doll like that one. Well, I had beautiful dolls. Just not that one. And so I begged my mother for it and finally, after my persistence and annoying ways, she gave it to me.

I felt selfish and once I had that doll, every time I held her, I felt guilty. I learned that, in regards to Christmas, it's better to give than receive.

A few years later, I learned more about what Christmas means. I learned what the meaning of Christmas was really all about. I learned that since the beginning of time, God loved the world so much, that He had to do something to give us hope in this crazy place. Hope for situations where we felt deceived and forgiveness for our selfish ways. And so, he gave us His son.

He put him on this earth. As a little baby-a baby boy. He grew up, much the same as you and I but he didn't deceive others and always told the truth. He taught that the truth would set us free.

He didn't try to manipulate people into giving him what he wanted. Instead, he let others give to him when they were ready and he never pushed to get his way. He showed the world that it was better to give than to receive.