It starts on Black
Friday. Well, it starts that day because
I am already wondering how I’m going to save up for next Christmas. All year
long I plan and scheme and scrimp and use supernatural amounts of self-control. I sock as much as I can in a special savings
account to which I have not internet nor ATM access. If I want to touch it, I have to physically go
up to the bank and ask them to remove it.
Even on purpose, it’s painful.
Knowing how many
kids I have to buy for (Six! Plus now my
son-in-law, my granddaughter, always my sister and her family, then the
stockings and for each other, *whew!*), I don’t rest easy until my monetary goal
is reached. Through the years, things
have happened that attack that account and even though they seem important –
roof fell in, window smashed, daughter’s wedding – it has horrified me to rend
money from the Christmas account.
Completely rattles me! And I work
like a madman at whatever extra odd job I can find until my goal is
reached, again.
Near the end of
November, I hunt through the ads and plan and scheme and circle and
calculate. And ok, yes it’s slightly
anal, but I actually keep a spreadsheet on every purchase and can get all the
kids within 5 dollars of each other. Then,
that DAY. That wonderful, fun, glorious,
exhilarating DAY that I go shopping! In about a six-hour period, I can blow through a thousand dollars. And it feels FABULOUS! Because I know I am getting twice what could
normally be afforded. And I didn’t
charge it!! That day’s shopping is my
own reward after working months and months.
Because my set
budget is so strict, I know I MUST do a good job! I can’t tell you how I thrill at finding an
ad for a toy or gadget or article of clothing in later weeks and obnoxiously
point out, “Look! Their sale price is
$34.99 and I paid just $25 the day after Thanksgiving!!” hahahahaha
(evil, world-reigning type of laughter)
Then I spend
literally HOURS wrapping, choosing just the right color ribbon for the package,
creating designs and accents, making serious folds and creases as I go. This year I included my 4-year-old in the process. Each one was a craft project, I would tell her. We’d look at the item and talk about how much the recipient was going to like it, about what a great deal I’d gotten on it (never too early to train a savvy shopper!), and then choose the color paper and ribbon. Finally, we would admire our work and lay our hands on the package and pray for that person. It became my favorite part of readying myself for Christmas.
Now I look at the tree dancing in the dark with its sea of presents beneath and I think, “Get up! Get up! Get up!!!” I have been preparing for this day for over a YEAR!
The Christmas season is a crescendo building with cookies and caroling and candles. We’ve seen plays and heard music and laughed at a chorus of lambs getting too sleepy to endure scratchy woolen ears any longer. We’ve made special foods and seen relatives we haven’t in months and prayed and worshiped and wrapped and sang and planned and COME ON!!! GET UP GET UP GET UP!!!!!
I don’t know how
God handled the anticipation. Expecting
a baby is such a joyous, wonderful time!
It’s also a queasy, swollen, scary, painful experience – but it’s all
with great purpose and meaning! Of
COURSE He had to be God to be patient enough to let his only Son take almost
ten long months to be born. In an animal
stall, no less! Crazy, the details.
He planned for all
eternity that it would happen and just waits for us to discover it. How exciting!
Come on, WAKE UP!
~~~~~Pondering Points
Galations 4:4-5
But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
Peter 3:9
The
Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient
toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach
repentance.
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