However the other day, while I was listening to all of those fabulous Christmas songs streaming on pandora as busied myself with something, I heard that ever famous line, "He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake." It bothered me. And I couldn't shake it all day. It seems so contradictory to the truth: We give gifts on Christmas to celebrate love, and family and mostly to remember the gift that God gave to us. The God of the universe gave us his son. Gifted a broken world with the only pure thing that could save us. This gift speaks to the goodness of the giver as much as the badness of the receiver. That first Christmas gift was in response to our failure. And it is a present we can not earn, we can not be good enough for this grace that He "lavished upon us." It brings me to tears. I am overwhelmed by what Jesus means. What He did that we celebrate in December and far greater the ultimate thing we celebrate in the spring. "How can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me?"
I think about the love I have for the people on my list and a small fraction of that grace slips through. I know I buy the things my children and husband want not because they have been perfect, but because I adore them. There is nothing greater than the light of glee in their eyes. Their behavior does not impact my gift giving. Gifts are about love.
Now I'm not going to become the anti Santa mom. But you can count on me telling my kids over and over that Christmas is about the first unearned gift and how powerful and overwhelming and humbling and life changing that really is.
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