Decoration

If a decoration is an embellishment on a basic structure it occurs to me that Christmas, to many people, could be considered a decoration on a year. We all plough through the struggles that life sends us from January to November and then December arrives! I wonder if we don’t see the parties, celebrations and hype just as a distraction from the mundane issues of life.

I understand that many people actually hate Christmas. This time of year brings out the worst of their fears, sorrows, insecurities and anxieties affecting their reactions to those around them.

The celebration of Christmas has had a checked past, throughout history. There have been the extremes in what was an acceptable way to pass the festive season. During the reign of Oliver Cromwell it would appear that there was to be no outward show of celebration and this was apparently in response to the over indulgences of the previous years. As a child I was led to believe that this was similar to the “over the top” commercialisation we see today.

Regardless of how we feel about Christmas the truth is that at the time when Jesus was born there was no decoration. At the time two young people were going to be first time parents. Yes they knew that they were going to welcome a very special baby into the world but that happened under the roughest of conditions.

We have two accounts of the birth of Jesus and they can be read in Matthew 1:18-23 and Luke 1:1-2:20.