Scrooge no more

It is no secret to the people who know me IRL that I generally don't enjoy Christmas. Until today I would have told you I hated it, in fact. I'm not going to try and explain why, b/c that's not really what this post is about and frankly I can't explain it well enough to bother trying.

This semester I started an internship that requires me to work on site three days a week - it is the first time in about three years that I've been surrounded by unbelieving coworkers, and it's been a bit of an adjustment. Not to say I don't enjoy the work, or the people, it is just a major shift from working in a Christian bookstore. Anyway, with Thanksgiving upon us (Happy Thanksgiving everyone in the US!) and Black Friday just around the bend - I've been faced with the fact that Christmas is just weeks away.

If you've read my posts this month you see that I'm trying to be more intentional about being thankful, and I've been thinking lately that while I might say I'm thankful and say I love God my attitude towards Christmas probably seems pretty counter to that. I mean, to an unbeliever what does it say about God when a Christian can't stand the time of the year when they are free to talk about Him with liberty?

Let's face it, the culture doesn't want to hear they need a Savior, but it certainly is more acceptable to talk about it at Christmas. And if that's true, how can I fulfill the Biblical command to be ready to give an account for the hope I have if I'm busy being grumpy about the shallow understanding of Christmas many unbelievers display? Grumpy attitudes tend to trump any words of hope I might speak.

So, starting today I'm not going to be telling people I hate Christmas anymore. In fact I'm going to seek to be thankful for Christmas. After all...


This is the season of the year when, whether we wish it or not, we are compelled to think of the birth of Christ. There are no probabilities whatever that our Savior Jesus Christ was born on that day...However, I wish there were ten or a dozen Christmas-days in the year; for there is work enough in the world, and a little more rest would not hurt laboring people. Christmas-day is really a boon to us, particularly as it enables us to assemble round the family hearth and meet our friends once more.
- CH Spurgeon

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