Today’s Post By: Rae Lynn DeAngelis
After I stopped believing in Santa Clause, my mom and dad no longer waited until Christmas morning to place gifts under the tree. With gifts in plain view, my brother, sister, and I would spend hours shaking the beautifully wrapped packages, trying to discern what treasures might be inside the pretty colored papers.
Eventually (to keep us from shaking the gifts), my mom grew clever and coded the presents using a secret numbering system. I must say that trying to guess what was inside each package lost its luster when we no longer knew which gift was ours.
On one particular Christmas morning, my mom couldn’t remember where she put the key code for the gift distribution. That year, even my mom didn’t know whose gifts were whose! There was only one way to figure out her little cryptogram… we had to open up the first round of presents.
After this little mishap, mom decided to go back to putting names on the gifts. She claimed it was a whole lot easier.
Easier maybe. But not nearly as interesting!
We all have special memories, traditions, and practices from childhood that we pass along to our own families after we are grown. Some traditions stand the test of time, while others change to fit our new family dynamics. Holiday memories and traditions are special. They bind us together in unique ways.
God understood the importance of keeping memories alive through ongoing traditions. We can see this by the way He established special ordinances that were to be observed and passed down from generation to generation. These practices were instituted to help God’s people remember what He did for them.
For example, after God told the Israelites to mark their outside door frames with lamb’s blood so the angel of death would pass over their home, He later instructed them to remember the event through a celebration called the Passover Feast.
“This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the LORD—a lasting ordinance.” (Exodus 12:14)
Some Christians do not believe we should celebrate Jesus’ birthday on December 25th. They reason that no one knows the exact date Jesus was born, so why pick a day and celebrate?
We don’t need to know the exact date Jesus was born to celebrate and remember this amazing event in history. The birth of Jesus changed the course of history forever. Why wouldn’t we acknowledge this remarkable occasion? Remembering and celebrating the birth of Christ is just as important as remembering and celebrating Christ’s death and resurrection.
“And [Jesus] took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.’” (Luke 22:19)
Go ahead and celebrate those family traditions surrounding Christmas. Just be sure and give praise to the One responsible for inspiring them in the first place.
Jesus – He is the real reason for the season!