......and to all a goodnight!
Before you read this post - I suggest stopping right now, making yourself a nice cup of hot chocolate, hitting play on this video, and then starting to read :)
So I'm pretty much in the full blown Christmas spirit already. I actually started listening to some Christmas music before Halloween (gasp!). I seem to start earlier and earlier each year. I was thinking that by the time I'm 50 I'll just be listening to it all year....
I watched my first Christmas movie of the season last night too - Four Christmases. Such a good and funny movie! I actually pulled up all of our Christmas movies, and I've got a lot of movie watching to do over the next month and a half.
Elf is one of my all time favorite Christmas movies!
I'm so excited to see A Christmas Carol, go Christmas shopping, bake Christmas cookies, see The Nutcracker (for the first time!), spend lots of time with my family, go to my senior Christmas Dance, look at Christmas lights, decorate my tree, and make lots of Christmas cake pops!
At first it seemed backwards to me that the older I get the more excited I am for Christmas. I can honestly say I'm more excited about Christmas now than I was 10 years ago when I was 7. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it makes a lot of sense. When I was young, of course I knew that Christmas was the celebration of Jesus' birth. I "knew" that, but I didn't truly understand it.
I think that when you're little you're really focused on yourself. It's hard to think abstractly and really try to wrap your mind around what Jesus' birth actually means. I know that when I was little, I was much more excited to see what Santa brought me than to think about Jesus' birth. I knew he was born and that it was a good thing, but I didn't understand the weight of that.
Every year, I mature and deepen my understand of life, and therefore, now I can understand how Jesus' birth actually affects me. I couldn't see that years ago. And I'm sure in another 10 years I'll be able to understand that even more than I do today. But I think that's why I get so excited about Christmas. My excitement is no longer the superficial kind that comes from opening presents on Christmas morning. My excitement is now the very real kind that comes only from God. From knowing that He sent His son just for me and for you. That's why I love the Christmas season so much, and that's why I start celebrating it sooner every year.
"For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord."
~ Luke 2:11
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