Thoughts on Christmas, #4, Where Will You Be This Christmas?

Something To Think About, Christmas, #4 Where will you be for Christmas?

For all of my life Christmas has involved traveling. I grew up in a post-WW2, Baby-boom families.  Dad, a Southern boy, had gone North shortly after the war to seek his fortune and raise a family.  In the process he separated himself and that young family from grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  We often traveled South for a quick trip around Christmas.  On a few occasions some of our relatives would brave a trip to the frigid North to celebrate with us.  Sometimes we'd visit someone else from the diaspora, or they us.  I'd say well more than half the time Christmas involved somebody spending all day, or night, in a car or on a train.  When my boys were growing up we were always a day's travel from at least one set of their grandparents, and now my sons and their families are of at the fringe of what sane people drive.  Of course grandparents at Christmas aren't always in their right mind.  :) Over the years gasoline has been one of the major Christmas related investments in my family. Numerous times, though, when we would be on our way home from a yule odyssey my wife would comment about a particular family member.  "I never feel like I can get close . . ."  Packing presents in the trunk, keeping the snow boots from smashing the pumpkin pie, staying up all night to get there Christmas morning, those things are all doable, but bridging the gap that existed between my wife and this loved-one, even though they were both in the same room, just never got done. Most of what I've had to say, this week, about Christmas has gone in the opposite direction of the way our culture tends to celebrate the holiday.  Here is an area where, at least in part, the popular view of Christmas is right.   Christmas is about family. This Christmas make the most of family.  Don't let the busy-ness of the season keep you from reaching out to those you love, and who love you.  Gasoline and plane tickets can help bridge the miles, but it takes an act of the will to open your heart to those around you.  It's worth the effort. It's Something To Think About. We would love for you to make the Live Nativity a part of your Christmas Season.  It is a very family friendly activity.   Click the picture for more information.  covingtonbiblechurch.com