You'll Shoot Your Eye Out Kid!

It's officially Christmas in our house now. At least in my book. Technically speaking our house has had decorations up since the first week of November when we hosted our annual "First Christmas Party" for our closest friends but tonight we brought home our Christmas tree. I'm not talking about one of those fake plastic trees that Radiohead sang about but a for-realsy tree.

For me that's when Christmas really starts. Nothing says Christmas like letting a fir tree slowly die in your front room. Really a weird tradition when you think about it but I love it. I grew up with live, I mean dying, trees at Christmas and if at all possible it's a tradition that I want to pass on to my son. That smell when you walk in the house after a long day...that's the best.

Obviously Christmas is much more than a tree, there are a lot of other wonderful traditions that make this time of year the best. Everybody thinks of Church pageants, houses festooned with lights (yep, I just used the word festooned), and of course the biggie, Christmas music! I've been listening to Christmas music since the day after Halloween. It's a necessity
here in Phoenix because the weather doesn't typically cooperate so you have to force the season into being. It's hard to think Christmas when it's in the 80's but you just crank up some Silver Bells or I'll Be Home For Christmas. Maybe a little Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree or A Holly Jolly Christmas and boom, Christmas is here.

Those are some of the obvious Christmas traditions but there so many more. Like all the TV specials! Those are the best. Rudolph, Frosty, 24 hours of A Christmas Story on TNT. Or is it TBS? I can't remember. Plus you have Miracle on 34th Street and It's A Wonderful Life - "Hellooo Savings & Loan!" All great stuff.

Then you have all the Christmas commercials. Like the Hershey's kisses commercial where the kisses are church bells and they play "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." You know the one I'm talking about, you can watch it here. Or those Lexus commercials where the wife buys her husband a Lexus and finds some cheesy way to tell him that she just put the family tens of thousands of dollars in debt plus another $400 for a big dumb red bow...actually I don't really like those commercials but they do remind me of Christmas so they have that going for them.

I could go on and on but this is supposed to be a blog entry not a novel so I'll just wrap it up (you see what I did there?) and encourage everybody to not rush through the season. Stop and enjoy it. All of it. The big stuff like pageants and over the top decorations and the small stuff like cooky Christmas commercials. But most importantly (and you had to know I was going here) don't forget what Christmas is really about. Whether you call yourself a Christian or not, you can't ignore the fact that without Christ you have no Christmas...after all He does make up over half the word.

If you believe in Him, take the time over the next three weeks to truly thank Him for what He's done for you. And if you don't believe Christ was real take a little time this Christmas season to really ask yourself why and do some serious investigating or if need be, some deep soul searching. I promise you won't be disappointed.

Merry Christmas everybody!