No More CHRISTmas

Each year I find my heart grows sadder during the Christmas season as I watch more and more of Christ being taken out of the celebrations.

Sadly I witness the true meaning of Christmas being buried and forgotten beneath holiday decorations, presents, Santa, elves, and anything else that man can think of in order to gain a profit and our enemy use to distract from the birth of our Lord.

This year, more than any other, I keep asking myself “where is Jesus?” Drive down the road and you see very few nativity scenes. Home after home there are many Santa’s and such. But where is Jesus?

I wonder if we are headed to a time, in the not so distance future, when people will actually forget it’s the birthday of the Christ. Already towns are being told to remove nativity scenes and Christmas crosses. It’s hard to find any retail store that will say Merry Christmas. Children can’t sing Christmas songs about Christ in school. It seems with each generation the babe that came to save us is pushed further away.

It’s true, none of this is completely surprising to me, as the enemy has done a good job of deceiving those who don’t believe in Christ anyway. But what does surprise me, what saddens my heart, is that even those who believe in Christ have either put Him in the background of their celebrations or practically removed Him from the holiday.

Christmas has become a celebration of Rudolph the Red nose Reindeer, and Dasher, and Dancer, Frosty the snowman and an elf you can adopt who will then report back to Santa if boys and girls are good or not. Apart from having nothing to do with Jesus are we saying it’s good parenting to teach our children that bribery is okay? Do we really want our children thinking the reason for good behavior is to get presents? What does this have to do with Christ and the need of a savior?

God doesn’t need elves, He sees everything. He knows that there is not one that is good, we have all sinned. Therefore we are in need of Jesus, not Santa.

Please understand there is nothing wrong with sharing the real story of St Nicholas who was a good saint, but why would Christians allow this man to become the center of the holiday? Why would believers in Christ buy into all the commercialism of the holiday and those things that draw us away from Christ? It’s not Nickmas, Elfmas,  or Santamas,  it is CHRISTmas right?

So if it’s still called Christmas, and it’s a celebration of Jesus coming to earth as a baby then why not make it about Jesus? Why not center our celebrations on the birth of One who would save us from our sins?

Just one last thought. If Christians do not celebrate the birth of Christ differently than the world how will we be a LIGHT? No wonder the world is walking away from the the true meaning and allowing Christ to be removed, why wouldn’t they if Christians are also forgetting the Babe who came to earth.

I am still processing…wondering…praying and asking. I just can’t seem to break the feeling that we are losing Christ in Christmas.