HAVING CHRISTMAS WITHOUT CHRIST

      When I was growing up, our holidays were occasions for drinking and fellowship. We often had fun... until the drinks took over, and we couldn't fathom a holiday without alcohol. This was especially true of Christmas, and as I grew older, my anxiety overwhelmed by my anticipation. Every Christmas was pretty much the same. Our parents were generous enough and they tried to be festive. Mother made sure that they spent exactly the same amount of money on me and each of my two brothers. Christmases were meant to be fair and festive, and they very well might have been if it weren't for the drinking.
      The drinking, however, always dampened the evening and sometimes ruined it altogether. I lament as one who must have learned a lesson, but I didn't, and when my wife and I had our own Christmases, I drank as much as I could. It was the only way I knew to have fun and I couldn't envision a holiday without it. In fact, when I traveled to Fredericksburg, Iowa to spend my first Christmas with my wife's family, I waited politely for a while... before I asked for a drink. "Oh," they said, "There's no alcohol in the house. We don't drink at Christmas." What? I must have heard it wrong. I quietly asked my wife, "Is there a place 'up town' (that's what they called the downtown area) where I can buy some alcohol?"' "No," she said, and you don't need any, which was wrong... because I did. Thankfully, it turned out that Everett had a little swig of whiskey each morning and the bottle was in the cupboard. With his permission, I found it and my spirit came to rest for a moment.
      I've never forgotten how surprised I was to discover that some families were celebrating Christmas without alcohol, and now we do the same of course. In fact, I haven't had a Christmas drink since Christmas of 1975, but it wasn't alcohol that was killing our Christmases. It didn't help, that's for sure, especially in my hands, but the real problem was that we were having Christmas... without Christ. There was no Christ in our Christmases- none at all. From the late 40s to the late mid 70s, we celebrated Christmases without Christ. No church service. No prayers. No sacred music, No mention of the "reason for the season." No moment of silence. Just fellowship and drinking... until the drinking won out. Our Christmases were empty... because we didn't invite Christ, and I've learned since then, that inviting Christ in NOT an option,,, because there can be no Christmas with Him,
      Friends, Christ is not a choice when it comes to Christmas because, as Christians, we believe that He barged into history to save our souls and to make our lives worth living. We insist that He gave up divinity and took on vulnerability so that we might share in His glory. It's a wild thing to believe- that God came to earth and died on a cross to set us free- and no one has to believe it, of course. No one ever has to believe it, but His coming to earth IS what Christmas is about... and your Christmases will be emptier if you leave Him out. My parents drank too much at Christmas, but the bigger problem was that they left Christ out of Christmas! Indeed, if He had been there, I suspect that the excessive drinking would not have been. Amen.