I’ve mentioned before that I have mixed feelings about Christmas.  In fact, sometimes my children and wife think I am Scrooge personified. There are a lot of complicated reasons for these mixed feelings, but this year I am looking forward to Christmas more than in the past.  I’m not sure why.

On this, the first day of December, I am thinking Christmas-y thoughts.  I recently put up Christmas lights on our house — something we haven’t done much since we lived in Indiana.  The Christmas tree is already in the house but not yet set up.  (I pulled it out of the garage when we were cleaning the garage on Saturday.) We hope to add a few more outdoor decorations in the next few days.  The lights give the house a nice glow at night.

Part of the reason Christmas time has always been a bit negative for me is the onslaught of spending on gifts and such. Many years in the past, this has put us in debt.  We are extremely fortunate to have a small amount of extra income at this point in the year, so I am not as stressed about the money angle as I have been in some years past, and that helps. Another stress in the past has been when we host Christmas at our house and kill ourselves trying to get the house cleaned up and decent enough for family to come over. We haven’t hosted Christmas for a few years now, and I don’t think we’ll be hosting it this year, either. That’s a good thing because our house is in need of major renovations and cleanup. Not having to host Christmas takes away a major negative aspect of the season for me, too.

More than anything else, though, I struggle with getting excited about Christmas or any other event that children get so excited about.  My glass is half empty, not half full, which means that I tend to be negative in outlook.   I hope and pray that this year I will join my children in their excitement and anticipation.  I also want them to truly appreciate and focus on the reason for the season, which is the fact that God came into our world as a baby, in order that He might save us from our sins by dying on the cross in our place. Recently I’ve begun to pick a passage from the Bible to read to the three younger ones as part of putting them to bed each night. They seem to really enjoy this. I think I’ll plan to focus on Bible verses throughout this month that talk about Jesus’ birth and what it means to us.

On a rather sad note, I was thinking the other day about the fact that this Christmas may be the last one where Keegan is living at home with us.  At this time next year — hopefully — he will be busy finishing his first semester in college.  Where has the time gone?  And more importantly, I ask myself, have I used that time well?