He’s making a list,
Checking it twice;
Gonna find out who’s naughty or nice.
Santa Claus is coming to town
He sees you when you’re sleeping
He knows when you’re awake
He knows if you’ve been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake
You better watch out
You better not cry
You better not pout
I’m telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town
~ John Coots/Haven Gillespie
Every year people talk about the need to
Put Christ back into Christmas. Sometimes this is in response to materialism and sometimes it’s a reaction to the substitution of the letter X for the name of Christ. Christmas is the day that we’ve chosen to celebrate Christ’s birth. It’s also a day filled with cherished memories of Santa Claus and special treats and gift giving.~And Xmas isn’t a secular conspiracy to take Christ out of Christmas. The first letter of the Greek word Christos is transliterated in our alphabet as an X. The word Xmas (Christ-Mass) has been used by Christians, not against Christians, for hundreds of years. Christmas is a celebration of Truth and traditions.~I grew up loving Jesus and Santa Claus. We lived in such a small town that Santa Claus literally came to my front door on Christmas Eve to ask what gifts I wanted. This happened every year until I was in first grade when Sherry Miller told me the man on my porch in a red suit was her Dad. I quit believing in Santa when I was seven. I never quit believing in Jesus.~But somewhere along the line, I melded together God, Who I knew was real but hadn’t seen, with Santa, who I knew wasn’t real but had seen. I unconsciously carried this concept of Santa God into adulthood.~I pictured Santa God watching to see if I were being
naughty or nice. I kept trying to
be good for goodness sake and I was, mostly. But when I failed, my failures led to shame. Failing to be good as an adult meant something more serious than no gifts, it meant no grace. None to get. None to give.
~I’d missed the message from the very start. I’d overlooked the incomprehensible gift of grace required of God for there to
be a baby in a manger.~Christmas seems to be the one day
we do think about Him and talk about Him. The challenge is thinking about Him just as much in January. The challenge is to share His message of Love and Grace the other 364 days.~The problem isn’t that there isn’t enough Christ in my Christmas. The problem is that there isn’t enough Christ in me.
