MW- Christmas Midweek!

So here's my first holiday cop-out. I had to write a midweek article for PACC's bulletin and I decided to post it here. It applies to everyone who reads this anyway so here goes:


Christmas time is here! It no longer is appropriate to sing “it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas” because in actuality it’s beginning to look a lot like the New Year and in only a few short days we’ll be looking back on the 2011 Christmas that was.

a good ol' fashioned... are those elves coming out of a fire?! What is this?!

There are so many things that surround the Christmas season that many of us don’t take the time to truly reflect on. We’re so busy running around getting presents and going to Christmas parties that it’s hard to really consider why in the world someone would have a tree in their house. I mean it’s normal to see a few flowers in a vase on the dining room table but a whole tree? When you take a moment to look at the pets in the house you realize just how perplexing this really is, but what really gets me is the gifts.

We were talking about this in youth group; why do we give gifts around Christmas time? And I don’t mean to brag but everyone of the kids had the perfect Christian answer, “because Jesus was the greatest gift of all!” It would be so simple to say that and then just write it off like “oh, I guess we all know the meaning of Christmas, let’s move on,” but if we truly believed Christ was such a great gift, shouldn’t it change our lives?

I think about when I opened my first Gameboy on Christmas day. 

I don't mess around with that 3DS BS.

For the next few months I had that Gameboy in my backpack and I would play it non-stop. All of my conversations at school would be about my Gameboy and how awesome it was. When I received that gift, as silly as it was, it changed my life. So why does it seem that every Christmas season I get super excited about Christ’s birth but the day after it feels so disappointing, like everything wondrous about it has simply dried up?

I don’t live everyday dedicated to the gift of Christ. I certainly try, but when I think of the students I teach I realize that for them being dedicated to Christ solely for an entire day seems impossible. They can't even stay dedicated to their girlfriends that long.

angst.

Now for me to get to my sales pitch: See, we’re getting ramped up for a trip up to Angeles Crest for Winter Camp 2012. It’s going to be in the very beginning of February and that gives us very little time to get the word out and to raise money. This will be my first attempt of many, but I want you to realize that for these kids going up to camp isn’t about snowballs and sledding, or playing games and staying up late, camp is one full day of being completely surrounded by Christ, away from the noise and the… well, the Gameboys. It’s a great gift to give someone because as the saying goes “give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a life time.” You can give a kid a gift and show them what it means to be generous and giving like Christ or you can send a kid to camp and teach them to be completely inundated with Christ, surrounded by Him and truly close to Him.