The Gift

(Written on 25 Dec 2022)

With Christmas comes the gift 🎁

With Christmas is Christ ✝️ and with Christ, Christ is the gift that keeps on giving ❤️ as I take this opportunity to remember that if it had not been for the day of His advent, we would not be celebrating now.

This then leads me to ask: why do we/you celebrate Christmas?

Food for thought 🤔 as otherwise, when we greet each other with 'Merry Christmas', what is it that we are actually saying? or are we merely engrossed in tradition and merely repeating verbatim what is said to us but don't actually know? Sometimes what is passed down from generation to generation can cloud our understanding, some things we cannot say from past generations because today they'd be deemed as politically correct and yet Christmas remains.....

Perhaps the stability of the season is fixed on what every individual needs - the joy, love, peace, companionship and most of all, assurance in hope for better relations and a better tomorrow. Christians and non-Christians alike desire these things and that's the beauty of how Christmas unites us 🤗

Perhaps it is receiving a gift that gives us pleasure, or maybe it is in the giving? Only you can answer that.....but the constant in both the giving and receiving is the knowledge that this gift comes from love ❤️ whether from a parent, a sibling, a family member, a friend or from a partner/spouse.

Love is the essential ingredient and I'll just stick a pin 📍 there.....

Why? Because before Christmas, it interested me in where it came from, historically speaking than from my faith alone....to learn about the Roman Feast of Saturnalia. Here they would sacrifice publically to the god Saturn, they would drink and be merry, party and give gifts for what they called 'the best of days' in celebration of 'the Golden Age'.

With this in mind, maybe some celebrate Christmas as the Romans celebrated Saturnalia for 'the best of days' but Christmas is much MUCH more special than that 😍 and maybe this is what touches every heart to celebrate when Christmas is about that special ingredient 📍 - Love ❤️

John 3:16 reads that 'For God so LOVED the world' (that's everybody!) 'that he GAVE' (His 🎁) 'His only begotten Son' (Jesus) and at the timing of this, this is where the babe Jesus was born. The fulfilment of the promise God made to Abraham centuries before 'that out of thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed' (Genesis 22:18)

Whether you read this as a believer or not, or as an agnostic, you are likely to be familiar with the Nativity Story from school or have the baby Jesus out this Christmas. Maybe you tune into Carols from Kings or attend Carol services in your local area and hear the story. In that sense, you are hearing about this Gift 🎁 and even reading about this Gift 🎁 as you read my words.

Let your Christmas be blessed.
Let your Christmas be one of LOVE.
Let us remember Christmas was birthed out of Love, the Love of God who loves you regardless.

All we need to do is open this Gift as we open our other presents, for it is under your 🎄 as much as it is under mine.

Peace to you 🤗
#JesustheReason4theSeason

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