Where is Christmas?

*disclaimer* I chose the cartoon because it says exactly what I'm going to say...that we've seemingly lost Christmas...and I guess it's Santa's job to find it?

This is a Rant!

Last Friday I took our Sr. High students to Bright Nights in Stanley Park. This is where you can board their miniature train to be taken around approximately one million lights all displayed in the trees. This is always a holiday favourite with many families in the Vancouver area. I remember going on this train many times growing up...and even one of my great friends proposed to his now wife on the train. But something was really missing...

I'm sitting here in a coffee shop with pictures of reindeer's throwing snowballs at each other on the windows. There are snowpeople sitting on shelves, while there is a tree tightly put into the corner of the store. But something is really missing..

The malls are decorated with every thing possible to celebrate the holidays. Signs are everywhere wishing us Happy Holidays, teetering on the edge of trying to be culturally sensitive. But I hope to not step foot in another mall until well after the rush of shoppers are gone. Yet something is still missing...

And so I am reminded of a song...a song by a man who asked a very good questions over 30 years ago. "So this is Christmas?" John Lennon penned these words back in the 1971. And I find myself singing this song recently asking the same question. "So this is Christmas?" I haven't found myself all too festive or cheery in these days leading up to December 25th. I don't know why, but this year I've found myself to be far more introspective towards this topic. I've watched way too many news reports on schools no longer even saying the "C" word during the Holidays. They have "winter fest pageants" at their schools now.

And I'm left here wondering what has become of Christmas? Do we blame the media? No...our culture is simply a mirror of what we live out. We've all done this...and even us as Christians who are so afraid of saying the wrong thing. Even if someone finds the words Merry Christmas offensive, I'd hope they rather hear someone saying that then F**K. Get the point?

I think the hardest thing to hear is that people do fine Christmas offensive. What confuses me is that Christmas is about love and hope coming to the world through a little child. Can I ask where the offense is taken? Was it the love part? The hope part? The little child part? I really hope we as followers of Jesus...that child born in a manger 2000 years ago, realize the message we have is far from offensive. It is the greatest story to ever be told...a story that has the power to radically change lives. A story about love, hope, joy, peace; things that our world is so desperately longing for. Again I ask you...where is the offense in those things?

So someone please let me know where Christmas went? Maybe there is still some hope. Maybe under the dim light of candles as we gather on Christmas Eve...maybe somehow through that we'll see where Christmas went...and where we need to go to find it again?

So this is Christmas?

-Ty