Let’s get started on Christmas!

This is the most wonderful season of the year!  Please allow me to make a few suggestions that will make this your best Christmas ever!

Find someone in need and help them.  There are tons of orginizations that use this season to spread God’s love.  Toy drives, Christmas baskets collecting food for the needy, home visits for the elderly, even visitng the local shelter to volunteer.  The greatest joy of Christmas is giving, and it is never more satisfiying than when it is to those, truly in need!

Take time to relive the real Chrismas story.  Read the story of Christmas in Luke 2: 1-20.  Ponder the significance for all mankind that God sent His only Son to earth to teach us and die for our sins, no greater Gift  has ever been given.

Spend time with family.  If you are close to your family, break bread with them and enjoy all the great memories of Christmas’ past.  If  you are estranged from anyone, there is no better season for forgiveness and restablishing the love that was once part of your lives.  No hurt is so deep that God’s love and his Grace and Forgiveness can’t overcome it!  After all, that is why Christ came!

Take time to watch to very important Christmas films, It’s A Wonderful Life and your favorite version of A Christmas Carol.  May I recommend the 1951 version starring Alastair Sim as Scrooge, truly a classic!

On Christmas Eve read your children or grandchildren the story of Christmas in Luke and Twas The Night Before Christmas, hopefully around a roaring fire in the fireplace!

As family gathers, put on your portrait lens and sneak in some casual portraits of your family members.  Trust me these will someday be your most important images!

Surprise your spouse with something special she or he is not expecting and use it as a way to honor them and their contribution to your life and the life of your family.

Take time to privately worship the Man that the season is in honor of.  Ask Him to come into your heart and make you the man or woman you  know you “should” be!  If you ask He will!!!

Merry Chrismtas,

the pilglrim