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Friday, December 9, 2011

Putting up Christmas…inside edition

Let’s start at the very beginning…a delicious yummy to start the day.

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Then add in some super cute (and always moving – but I hate the flash – so my son is always blurry!) kiddos…

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Introduce the tree.  Oh our tree.  $29.88 purchase at Target when we were first married.  It’s not the prettiest tree by any stretch of the imagination.  But, the memories and smiles that it evokes each time we bring it out – they’re beautiful and priceless.  I’ll never be able to get rid of that tree.  Except when it “stops working” – which may be coming sooner than later…the middle section is currently not lit, and I’m too lazy to find which silly little bulb didn’t get the memo.

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I love putting up Christmas.  I love taking treasured items out of boxes once a year and remembering.  Their individual stories, the memories that accompany them.  There is goodness there.

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The living water in our own hearts is the fountain from which we shower Christ on those close to us. Our time with God and his preparation of us is a necessary foundation. Without it our Christmas activities will degenerate into hoopla.

But however much we want a significant Christmas celebration, that is not the primary reason for our contemplation and self-examination. Our deeper motivation is the strengthening of our ultimate hope in Jesus, “so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming” (1 John 2:28).

May this time be a reflection of what our lives are—gratitude for the promises that were fulfilled when God gave us the gift of his son and anticipation of and preparation for Christ’s coming again.

-Noel Piper, Desiring God Blog

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