It’s a week before Christmas and all I can say,
It’s gonna feel good to just get away;
From the work and the bills and the stresses of life,
To make memories with family and spend time with the Wife.

I love Christmas—the music, the lights, the trees, the decorations—I love all of it. I even like Santa. I see the wonder of the season captured in the wide-eyed innocence of a child’s face and long to be that child again. Life seemed simpler then . . . maybe because I choose to remember it that way.

We can make it simpler—for a time—if we choose. It’s as easy as closing our eyes and ears to the noise around us, long enough to open our hearts to the voice inside us . . . the voice of hope, and peace, and comfort . . . the voice of Jesus; after all, he is the first gift of Christmas.

Maybe that’s why I love this time of year. It’s not because of Santa. He may be plump and jolly, but he can’t compare with that tiny perfect child, sleeping in a feed trough in a lonely stable in Bethlehem. Who could have known that the beautiful child, born that first Christmas day, would soon die a cruel and bloodied death on a cross made of wood . . . but that is why He came.

So this Christmas I will love my Wife, my Children and my Grandchildren as we make memories to last a lifetime. I will laugh with friends and eat too much; but most of all I will put “the first gift of Christmas” at the center of everything I do; and hope that all who read this strive to do the same.

Happy birthday Jesus.