Pondering My Christmas Gifts - The Eleventh Day of Christmas

Greetings and Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year Beloved Readers,

I do not know if you remember or have read back that far, but this all started with a series about people putting up Christmas decorations on All Souls Day. Here we are a day before Epiphany and many are dealing with the “after Christmas slump.” As way of beginning to close out my writing about Christmas for a spell, I wanted to offer another perspective. As I said way back in November, the whole idea of Christmas is the preparation for the Advent of our Anointed Savior. He is coming. Not just did he come, but he is coming back. The process of redemption is still moving forward and we are every day either detracting from or adding to the reclamation of our world. What I do today either makes the world a better place or a worse one.

How I treat everyone matters. Am I loving, patient, kind? Do I like Saint Francis beg God to make me an instrument of peace? The year is young and new. Christmas decorations are coming down and all the Christmas stuff at Wal-Mart is 75% off. I bought a few little things for next year. My daughter got some sale items so she can spend the year crafting cards for people next Christmas. We even in the waning days of this Christmas look forward and begin to prepare for the next.

Perhaps like Ebenezer Scrooge we can “keep Christmas in our heart all the year.” Perhaps this can be the year where we prepare for the Advent of Christ a little bit every day. If we give a little more of ourselves to him and those he puts in our path for the next eleven months, perhaps the reward will be that next year we will feel less put out when the decorations go up “to early.” Perhaps we will feel less stress, less pressure, and more love for those who need Christ so desperately.

So on the eleventh day of Christmas my Savior gave to me eleven months to prepare, ten reasons to love him, nine men to guide me, eight men I can help see, seven figures under the tree, six more days of rest, five perfect things, four children to gather round me, the blessing of the Trinity, twice the joy of giving, and a purpose for carrying his tree.

Wishing you joy in the journey, Merry Christmas, and a blessed New Year

Aramis Thorn