Christmas

I know we've all heard about the true meaning of Christmas being lost in commercialism and Santa Claus. The other day I was looking in the Deseret Book catalog and saw a book by some guy trying to prove Santa Claus exists. I think some of the old Christmas songs say it best, they speak of a simple and uncluttered Christmas. What happened to the days when we used to wish, "Why can't every day be like Christmas." If everyday were like Christmas, I would come to hate Christmas. It would be more appropriate to say, "Why can't every day be the way Christmas should be." So many things have become associated with Christmas that detract from the overall experience: crazed shoppers, overwhelming hustle and bustle, stress to get the right gifts, seeing Christmas in stores before Halloween, commercialized Santaism, things and materialism. I could go on, but my point is to illustrate the difficulty in being able to wade through everything to find the Christ in Christmas, especially when it is shortened to X-mas. Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas. I get excited every year about putting out my Christmas village and putting up the tree and the lights. Somehow, I do manage to find meaning at Christmas time. I just wish the world could find the same meaning, without trying to over-complicate it.

Simply put, Christmas is a time of renewal, of new birth, symbolized by the birth of the Savior. Christmas is a time of warmth and love, when people come together, like the shepherds and the wise men. Christmas is a time of giving, not just of presents, but ourselves, just as the Father gave us a part of himself the night His son was born into our world. Christmas is a time to hope for the future, just as the angels hoped for a better future knowing that Christ had begun his saving mission. Christmas is a time to let go of the past and start embracing the future, just as Christ's birth marked the beginning of the end to an old law and the beginning of the new law.

Let's take the true meanings of Christmas to heart this year. Let's look for them through the fog that society has created and find them shining like a star that can't be dimmed, that lights the entire earth. I remember some words to a song I sang growing up, Mom, helped me out with the words.

"The night was long, we traveled far, at times I looked but could not see the star. yet still it shown, unveiling then the way to Bethlehem. My heart held fear, mid puzzled joy, for I was only a small shepherd boy, and on a hillside soft and green, I heard an angel sing. I saw the midnight sky aflame with radiant angels bathed in light, holy light, bringing word that Christ was born and beckoning to find him, go and find him. But life goes on, years beyond, one brief night of my youth, time clouds my vision of truth. And though I stumble and fall, I can hear someone call, do not despair, your star is still there. That Christmas night, so long ago, has filled my life with light because know that he lives now as he did then a babe in Bethlehem, whose love never ends. Shine for me again, star of Bethlehem." (Shine for me again: Star of Bethlehem).

Recording time

Many times I've wished that I'd kept a better record of my life. Actually, there are a lot of things I wish I had done and a lot of things that I still want to do. Where do we begin reconciling what we didn't do that we wanted to do, with what we actually did, even if it didn't turn out the way we wanted? I don't know of many things in my life that actually turned out the way I wanted, some have turned out better and some, obviously have not turned out as well as I had hoped. It might be significant that the things that have turned out better are those most likely to be related to my eternal happiness (family). I just wish I had a higher success rate, well, that I had less things go worse than I had hoped. I read a quote once, back in my days of collecting quotes, by the way, I'm thinking of typing them up soon, anyone interested? Anyway, back to the quote, "Of all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest of these, it might have been." That wasn't the one I was thinking of, but it seemed to apply. Years of not reading (anywhere near like what I used to) and not perusing through my quote book has gradually dulled my memory. The gist of the one I was actually thinking of is the disparity between what we are and what we could be. I realize we will never attain in this life to what we actually could be, but we should at least be drawing closer and lessoning the gap, right? As I've worked with James in his classes, I've noticed that we all define success in different ways, to some it's money, to others it's educational accomplishments, to yet others, it is family, career, etc. We each write our definition of success, but do we write it as what we want to accomplish or do we base it on what we have accomplished so that we feel we have been successful up to this point? What do you consider success?