When Christmas Was Fun

      Oh how things have changed concerning Christmas! I grew up in rural Mississippi and in very meager circumstances, but have fonder memories of Christmas then, than today. I liked Christmas as a little boy, but I do not like the modern commercialized Christmas we have now. Please do not misunderstand, I love the real meaning of Christmas. I love the story of how Jesus was born into this world to save His people from their sins. That is what Christmas is all about, pure and simple.

      I looked forward to Christmas then, and almost dread it now. The way this world has hijacked Christmas takes much of the joy and excitement out of it. Millions want to profit from Christmas but have no use for the reason we have a Christmas season. Do we actually need to be reminded that without Jesus Christ, there would be no Christmas?
      It is ridiculous how many "things" have crept into the Christmas season that plague us each year. People use Christmas as an excuse to get drunk at parties. Jealousy, envy and greed are magnified during Christmas more than any other time of year. There is more loneliness at Christmas than we realize. Violence escalates each year during the Christmas season. If a retailer does not want to use the word Christmas in their ads or promotions, they do not deserve our money. And for those who don't believe in Christmas, then don't observe it. Stay at work all through the season.

      Usually we kids would get ONE thing at Christmas, and sometimes a gift was for more than one person to share. I can distinctly remember some of the gifts through the years. One year, I got a Daisy B-B gun, another year, a baseball. One of the highlights of my childhood was getting a shiny new Western Flyer bicycle. I was so excited as I rode out through the front yard (looking back and smiling), that I piled it up on the roots of a big oak tree, putting marks on the bike and my knees. One year my present was a little Ben Pearson fiberglass bow, three arrows, and a plastic target. Another year I got up to find that double-holster cap gun and belt that I had looked at in a store for so long. I never dreamed that my mother would go down on Christmas eve night and get it for me. A friend and I were reminiscing about an Eldon Road Racing Set that he got one Christmas. It cost a total of $12, and his mother had to put it on lay-away and pay it out in time for Christmas. One year after looking through the Sears catalog and hinting for some things he wanted, all he got for Christmas was a monkey on a stick. He threw it up against the wall in disgust! Not a good thing, but true.

      Decorations were simpler long ago. I remember us having one old strand of lights with big colored bulbs. We'd put them on a sad little cedar tree in the front yard and that was it. Later on I remember a little plastic Santa Claus face with one little white bulb in it, that hung on the front door. And you talk about hitting the big time, when my mother came home with an aluminum Christmas tree! It had a 4-colored plastic wheel that rotated with a spot light behind it. The tree slowly changed from a red, blue, green and yellow glow. We were uptown with that tree in the front window.

      I remember one Christmas going with a few folks from a church to sing Christmas carols. We would pull up at a house, stand in the cold under a clear, star-filled sky, and sing. I didn't know the words, but fondly remember how special that was standing outside side and listening to Silent Night, and other traditional songs.

      I may sound like a Scrooge, but I am just being brutally honest. Christmas was fun and simple a long time ago. It wasn't the amount or value of the gift, but the fact that you actually got something. I remember after the Christmas break, a school teacher asking if anyone would like to stand and tell what they got for Christmas. A friend, stood up on a cold, wooden floor, barefoot in the dead of winter, because he had no shoes. I can still see his big smile and pride when he said, "I got a sack of apples and oranges!" We were dirt poor, but I remember feeling sorry for him. But he was just as proud of a little sack of fruit as we were of our gifts.

      Christmas has changed so much, but the Christ of Christmas never changes. He still is on His throne, in charge of this old world that has seems all wrong at times. He still loves you and me. He will still save whosoever will repent of their sins and put personal faith and trust in Him. He is still God, and His name is Jesus. He is God in the flesh, God with us. I'm glad that I know the real meaning of Christmas. There's nothing good in or about me, it is all about our Lord. There is nothing I could have ever done to deserve God's own Son. That's why it's called grace; that's why grace is so amazing. He reached down and showed grace to a poor little country boy, from the backwoods of nowhere. Jesus puts hope where there is none, love where there is hate and harmony where there is discord.  He has a way of fixing things if we would only let Him, but we get in the way.

      To me, Christmas was more fun when it was simple and uncluttered by commercialism. I want to wish all who read this a Merry Christmas, the way it ought to be. I pray we will let Him to change our lives forever.