The Best of Christmas

This morning my wife and I were discussing the gifts that we recently purchased, and are in the process or purchasing for our five children. The youngest is seven with the oldest being twenty-two.

With so many children, we strive to spread out the quantity and cost of gifts equally. There are so many things out there that we would to purchase to make our children feel like they are having a "good" Christmas.

We have done the Black Fridays and the Cyber Mondays. We have shiny new metallic objects that makes us feel as if we are arriving as well as some new threads to show off in 2011.

But the most wonderful gift that we can give this year is the re-channeling of Christ's love and then demonstrate that love to my family and others.

It has become a cliche but after the boxes and wrapping paper are tossed out with the refuse we cannot let those things represent the Christmas holiday. I fear that commercialism is wringing the life out of days we hold sacred now because of door busters and close-out sales, but this cannot be.

This is my responsibility this season.