For some, the best moment of the entire Christmas season is the first snow of the year. For others, it is the moment the kids begin to rip open the presents. For the shoppers, it is the finding of that perfect gift. For the music lover, it is the Christmas concert at church or maybe the CONSTANT barrage of Christmas carols on the radio. For me, one of my favorite parts of the Christmas season is Christmas Eve. I love it because the air is heavy with the anticipation of tomorrow. Whether you watch big puffy snowflakes coming down or the sway of a palm tree outside your window...the feeling is the same. The gifts are settled beneath the tree, the house is fully decorated, sugar cookies are cooling on the counter, all the family is settled under blankets with steaming cups of cocoa watching the old favorites on television. It is the reading of the Christmas story before you go to bed and imagining how the holy family must have felt that first Christmas Eve...the worry, the wonder, the worship of it all.
In the stillness of Christmas Eve, one tends to forget the sad, the tragic, the depressing and all is quiet and still. For that quiet moment, all is right with the world and you cannot put a label on what that is. You cannot describe it. You cannot manufacture it.
I think what makes Christmas so strikingly different for the believer is that this is a holiday which gives us hope. Without that baby in the manger, there would be no reason to believe. Praise God for that first Christmas in Bethlehem. Praise God for the good news which we have in Christ Jesus. Ah yes....the Christmas Eve feeling is here again. But, the good thing is, I never have to wait till Christmas to have that same feeling again. It can always be Christmas in my heart.
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