Celebrating The Gift Of Life

(After you read todays post, hop over to She Cooks! Leann Rice invited me to share one of my favorite holiday recipes with her readers, so join us over there today too!)

For most people, Christmas is a season of the year that looms larger than life. It is a holiday that we each experience and celebrate in our own ways, and is an emotionally charged time in a myriad of ways.

But despite our differences in opinions about the holidays, there is one thing we share …… the fact that we are celebrating the birth of Jesus!

In fact, Christmas is the largest celebration around the world every year. Billions of people put aside their normal routines in December to decorate, party, shop, send cards, attend special church services, go carrolling, watch holiday television specials and travel to visit family.

Christmas sights and sounds fill the air everywhere you go, and it seems that everyone is celebrating - howeve - not everyone is celebrating the gift of life.

So many people joining in on the birthday celebration, without ever mentioning the birthday boy’s name. So many people are celebrating, but many are doing so without giving a thought to whose birthday they are celebrating. Their holidays are packed full with all kinds of stuff - but void and empty of life.

Christmas is not just a time to enjoy a celebration, but to celebrate life in three forms - the life of Christ whose birth we celebrate at this time of the year, the gift of earthly life that we have received from Him, and the promise of eternal life.

Three priceless gifts, all wrapped into one.

Ar the top of my favorite holiday movie list, is “It’s A Wonderful Life”, with Jimmy Stewart.

On the positive side, the movie remind us that we must embrace this gift called “life”, and to realize that it really IS a wonderful life - even when life does not seem all that wonderful.

On the negative side, the movie is a true depiction of how our enemy is at work in our every day lives, doing everything in his power to keep us from embracing that gift of life fully.

Tomorrow we will kick off our discussion about how George Bailey teaches more about life than you would have ever thought, including our life walk with God.

I hope you will join me as we continue talking about the REEL side of Christmas this week, enjoying our countdown to December 25th.

Stay tuned. Smiles.

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