Christmas exuberance won’t get me to shuffle off to Buffalo even though all of my close relatives live there. I actually used to do that once in a while in the past, but that was in the days when I thought the Buffalo Bills could win at football. We get ever more wiser as we get older. Now Christmas in Arizona would be more up my alley, but I am not about to travel there either just to try to find more Christmas exuberance.

Probably a large percent of the nation is trying to get somewhere where they really would rather not go in winter, but family obligations prevail – you know. So, millions will endure planes, trains and automobiles to get wherever they are going for the Holidays. They will even endure nude scanners and aircraft with air systems that are purposely set to spread germs so that the airliners can save some bucks on fuel. The proven way to get sick by New Years is to fly by Christmas.

People will travel from all ends of the nation just so they can gather around the Christmas tree tonight. I guess I am not a big Christmas person because there is no way that I am going up to Buffalo before the snow machine off of Lake Erie freezes over.

Christmas was better when I just got stuff. Now I mainly have to give stuff. Let’s face it, for most this is very commercial holiday and a real pain in wallet, as well as being a pain in the hind end.

Yeah, I know that Christmas is the time when some Christians celibate Jesus being born into the world. But, except for certain true Christians I do not see much joy in the world as a result of that event. The world would rather believe in the 12 days of Christmas when their true love sent to them 8 Maids A-Milking and 10 Lords A_leaping.

Even churches and Christians try to outdo each other around Christmas. They put on elaborate productions about the birth of Jesus from the little we know of that event. Some take the time and pay for the expense of enormous light displays each year. Of course scholars know that Jesus was not really born on December 25th.

I guess we can argue until the snow stops flying in Buffalo whether Christians Christianized a once pagan holiday or the pagan holiday paganised Christians. A case can be made for both. However, by looking at the score board we can see that the Pagans are leading the Christians by 40 points and its the fourth quarter. But, the score on the board really does not matter because soon we take the ball and go home and that will be the end of the game.

Christmas can be a very unproductive burden on people’s time. My wife is still doing last years Christmas cards that she never got done. She was still hoping to get them out by last summer, but they were still here until a few minutes ago. She just left to get them to the post office. Hey, they will arrive just a bit over a year late. So what’s a few minutes!

Some people in my church spent about a hundred hours putting on a Christmas musical performance for the community. The rehearsals started in October. I wonder how many people were saved or lives changed by all that time and expense? Can you just image if all the churches that are doing these plays and cantatas all over our nation used the same effort on some more productive approach to evangelism?

What if all the churches really had a Christmas effort to evangelize their towns rather than play acting out the birth scene? I do not know about you all, but spiritually I just do not get that much out of this annual ritual. Maybe I am just strange.

Did you know that suicides are the highest around Christmas than any other time of the year? I think that is because many are trying to recreate childhood memories. Adult reality usually falls short of childhood fantasy. Others never had any good memories and some had no family that they can call family. These people are usually found home alone on Christmas. Maybe there is something we can do about that if we know of someone?

Now don’t let my thoughts rain on your Christmas parade. (If that is even possible in these days of global warming that just brought a brand spanking new ice age to Britain and the Rockies). I assure you that even I will go somewhere and do the usual Christmas thing. (If the ice ever stops falling from the sky long enough to make that possible). But, I am not going to be shuffling off to Buffalo.

Nah, I won’t be saying bah humbug this Christmas season. Just, like most of you, I will show my due Christmas exuberance and I’ll be saying Merry Christmas.

To All, I wish you a Merry Christmas.

God bless Us, Every One!