Really Getting Ready for Christmas

Getting ready for Christmas is not for the faint of heart. 

If we were to follow everyone on the web (especially on Pinterest) our homes would 

look as if they were staged for the merriest of holidays, and we would have spent hours making them so. 

Some don't even like to decorate... my own mother became morose at Christmas, and my dad and my sister and brothers and I did all the tree buying and decorating.  

As she aged, mother would put less and less "Christmas" up, until she ended with 

one decoration, which I would unwrap yearly and put out for her, and 

pronounce the Christmas season started, and we would both laugh. 

Off on a tangent again, sorry. 

Anyway... for some it's hard.  I'm going to take a little story from an 

Advent book I've been reading at church during our Monday meditation time this Advent. 

Here it goes... and it is unattributed....

Why Am I Doing This? 

She lived alone, as so many do.  And she felt it especially at Christmas, as so many do. 

Decorating her Christmas tree, she began to argue with herself, an argument she'd had before

several times in these days before Christmas. "Why am I doing this, no one will see it, and I 

don't need it". 

Then she heard herself say: 

"You HAVE to do this. Not so that others will see it, but to remind yourself that 

the hope is real - not just words or a dream. It's real.  Jesus really DID come.  And so you really have a tree, and you decorate it,  and you buy real gifts, and you go to Midnight Mass (or your own church on Christmas), and you have a real Christmas dinner.  This is how you keep the hope alive and real."

Sometimes we forget this. 

Yesterday, I got a call from a family member who makes very little in her job.  She had a problem... a friend of her son's (my grandson) was going to have a VERY meager Christmas.  As it was, we had already bought a present for this nice young man, away back in November.  I just got back from a shopping trip for him this morning, even though I have a house to clean thoroughly and some baking to finish.  Because this young man needs to know that despite his sad family situation, the things written about above are true... that hope is real, and Christmas is a reminder of it. 

I know some who read this are non-believers... but I hope concern for your fellow man still lies in your hearts.  Not everyone expects to have a decent Christmas... and we can't help everyone... it's just not possible.  But if we all pull together and try to help AS MUCH AS WE CAN... we can make someone else's Christmas all about hope, too. 

I had a "regular" post to do today... but I think I will wait until tomorrow morning to do it.  I'll be facing a drive to Garnett tomorrow in the bad weather, so everyone say a prayer, please. 

Waiting for the Christ child to come on Christmas Eve.  Hope Comes Down, too.