“It is easy to think Christmas, and it is easy to believe Christmas, but it is hard to act Christmas.” [Act Christmas by anonymous]*

Scripture, especially Matthew chapter 25 gives me ideas of how to act Christmas. There is related that Jesus will say to some, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” because they fed, clothed, and in other ways ministered to Him. When questioned about when they had ministered in such ways, he answered: 

“And the King shall answer and say unto them, ‘Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.’” Matt. 25:40

So it seems that doing Christmas is more about serving others, meeting others’ needs. Perhaps even sacrificial giving.

When my son was young, we started a tradition of hanging a stocking for Jesus. It was just a dark green singleton that’d lost its mate. Humble, like Jesus. But as we went through the Advent season it was a great visual reminder to think about what would make Him happy. We filled the stocking with slips of paper identifying gifts given in Jesus name ~~ gifts of time, love, words, cookies. But also times we had chosen to yield our way, our turn, our preference in favor of someone else.  Continue reading →