Dear God, I was thinking abut topics for my prayer time with you today, and then it hit me. It started with how I feel about Christmas Eve now vs. when I was a child.

When I was little, it was all about the presents that were coming for me and the presents I was giving others. Presents, presents, presents. Then, when I was about 9 or 10 years old we started doing church on Christmas Eve. Christmas started to take on a more appropriate celebration of Jesus’s birth and incarnation. Later, as I moved away, it became about going home to visit for the holidays and then taking my wife and eventually children to visit our families at some point around Christmas. Jesus was still there, but there were, I don’t want to say “obligations,” because the word is more positive than that. I suppose there were emotional pulls to try to see family.

Of course, then we had children and it became about making it fun (and yet somehow meaningful in a Jesus-centric way) for them. Outside of my own childhood years, those might have been my favorite. It was a lot of fun to shower them with love, and they were young enough where they could receive it with complete joy.

Now, I am at the age where the kids are living in other places and there aren’t really things they want that they don’t just buy for themselves. This is the first year for my wife when both of her parents are gone. In fact, she told me it struck her that she doesn’t have anyone to buy a Christmas present for from her family of origin this year. That’s a weird feeling that I haven’t experienced. So we have each other. It’s Christmas Eve. I saw my parents briefly yesterday, in a safe, socially-distanced way. Our son and his dog will be here for the day tomorrow. And we will Zoom with my family of origin and our daughter tomorrow as well. We bought some presents for our children and my parents to express our love, but it’s more about the thought of the gift rather than what the gifts are. It’s different.

Which leads me to what I want to talk about this morning. I realized that all of the cultural Christmas things I have been experiencing over the last four weeks are completely secular. The TV shows and movies have nothing to do with you. In fact, I looked at the top 10 Christmas movies as rated by some group. They were 10.) National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation 9.) The Nightmare Before Christmas 8.) A Christmas Carol (1951) 7.) The Apartment 6.) Elf 5.) The Muppet Christmas Carol 4.) Home Alone 3.) Miracle on 34th Street 2.) A Christmas Story 1.) It’s a Wonderful Life. Even A Christmas Carol, in any of its renditions, really doesn’t have anything to do with you. It’s about the human heart, but nothing about reconciliation.

I probably need to go back and watch The Nativity. It was a really well-done depiction of Mary and Joseph’s journey up to Jesus’s birth. I think I’ve watched it twice. I supposed I should have watched it more. Why haven’t I?

Father, I really do want to spend this day in gratitude for you. My wife is important. My children and family of origin are important. Helping a family that is unknown to me with Christmas presents is important. But I don’t want to take you for granted any more than I already do. I am really grateful to you. Please help me to love you and then channel your love to others. And thank you for Jesus’s incarnation.

I pray all of this in Jesus’s name,

Amen