Have you thought about that lately?
These days, it’s almost non-existent.
I mean here we are, it’s December 18th, one week from Christmas, and I don’t see a lot of Christmas anything. The towns aren’t lit up, the stores aren’t lit up, and the neighborhoods aren’t lit up.
Don’t even get me started with the music…
For years now, Christmas music has been almost non-existent on the radio. If we’re lucky enough to catch a tune or two, it’s typically some modern version of a classic song.
What a mess…
It’s like the spirit of Christmas is dead.
How many times have you even heard, “Merry Christmas” this year?
I should mention, my observations are not in a silo. We’ve been all over the country, and it’s just about the same everywhere we’ve been — excluding big tourist traps.
We’ve slowly gotten to this point, over time. Society took a little here and a little there, until we have almost nothing left at all.
I remember when this all started…
They begin calling it “the holidays” to be politically correct.
Then at work, they started calling the “Christmas party” the “holiday party.”
How I rebuffed that one.
I knew, the more we did that as a society, that we would all begin to forget about Christmas. No one ever see’s it like that, but that was the beginning of the end. With such simplicity, Christmas was erased from our minds before we even realized it.
To appease a couple of people, we cast aside our Savior’s Day.
Unimaginable.
You know, no one ever thinks you’re going to forget your history.
It’s rooted, it’s embedded, it’s not going anywhere, right?
Wrong.
How this reminds me of the days of Josiah…
He started putting Israel back in order, from their abominable heathen days. So during that process, one of the priests finds this book somewhere in the temple.
Guess what it was?
The “book of the law of the LORD given by Moses.”
Yes, the Pentateuch, the first five Books of the Bible. I mean it’s just there, no one cared about it, the Book was long forgotten about.
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So the priest begins to read the Book before the king, and guess what the king does?
“He rent his clothes!”
The king flipped his lid!
He discovered the Israelite society was doing everything counter to God. Israel was neck deep in sin. The king just couldn’t believe how far off course they went. I mean here you have this people that basically walked with God, but they forgot their roots and heritage.
The story’s all there in 2 Chronicles 34 for those interested.
This is how it happens my friends…
Slowly, a little here, and a little there, until you have no roots left.
So back on the Christmas kick…
Just look around.
To a very large degree, the Christmas spirit is dead in the year 2023. Surely you’re making the same observations that I am…
Heck, when I was a kid, there was Christmas everywhere!
Christmas was in every town, store, and neighborhood. Christmas music was almost on every radio station you could find! I’m talking about the classics too, before they tried modernizing those classical tunes.
When you walked past people, they said, “Merry Christmas!”
You’d walk into the stores and be greeted by someone saying, “Merry Christmas.” Then, Christmas music would fill the store, people were smiling and happy in those days, the entire store would be decorated, but not anymore.
Shoot, that was only 20 years ago…
I’m sure my older readers are thinking,
“Son, you should have been around in the 60s.”
I’m sure you’re right.
So how do we get the Christmas spirit back?
I’m not sure we can, but if we could, it would start like this…
It would start with us, not someone else. It would start with our own actions. In order to recapture the Christmas spirit, we would need to start saying, “Merry Christmas” to our family, and friends.
We would need to make the effort, we would need to make that move.
When we walked into the office, we would need to say, “Merry Christmas!” We might even decorate our homes, a nice nativity scene and some modest lights to commemorate the occasion. Maybe we do that to our office or cubicle.
Nevertheless, we would do it, and once we started, it would send a ripple throughout the entire world. A ripple that would touch everyone else, a ripple that would effect everyone else…
Imagine that.
Merry Christmas!