Merry Christmas! I hope that this holiday season is a blessed one for you and yours. I always love the holidays--traditions are such a very, very special thing to me. They have a way of really binding families together. I think that must be why God always stressed family traditions...always encouraged parents to hand down memories and such to their children. Of course, the most important thing we can ever hand down to our children is a knowledge of God's plan of salvation, a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

At Christmas each year, one of our traditions has always been to light a candle on a loaf of banana bread or coffee cake and to sing Happy Birthday to our Lord Jesus. We will do that again this year, as well as begin a new tradition: this year, as we sit around the tree on Christmas morning, we will make a family list not only of the gifts we receive that day, but of all the many gifts we have received this past year. We realize that, even as careful as we are, it can be easy to "measure" our Christmas by the size of the pile of gifts under the tree. To help us refocus and be more grateful to the Lord, we want to spend time on Christmas acknowledging *all* that He has blessed us with throughout the year. We want to include both material things and non-material things. From the deer He provided us in hunting season to the car we had dearly needed to the love shown us by family and friends on various occasions. We plan to be very specific in our list, so that by the time we finish we will be overwhelmed by God's great blessings in our lives. Already I am filled with excited anticipation of Christmas morning!

In celebration of Christmas, the day we celebrate Christ's miraculous birth, I invite you to read an article I posted on Homeschool Country a few Decembers ago.

Immanuel . . . God With Us!

©December 1998 by Cari D. Cruse

December, the month that we celebrate the birth of Immanuel. That is the name I love to think of when it comes to this season--Immanuel...God with us. God with us. What an amazing and awe-inspiring truth. He is not just "God above us." He is "God with us." This indeed is a great blessing.

This month we will celebrate what many look on as only the birth of a precious Child. Yet we who have come to know Him personally are aware that it is a celebration of the day God first descended to be with us. He knew in advance all the turmoil that would follow His birth in a humble old manger, yet He so wanted to be with us. It wasn't enough for Him to be watching over us, He wanted to be nearer. So He took on our form, not wanting to overwhelm us with His greatness. He did not want anything to stand between us and the intimacy He so wanted with His own creation. Not because He needed it, but because He saw how much we needed it. And because He loved us. How dearly he loves us.

Even when He returned to Heaven, Immanuel made sure that He would continue to be "God with us" by sending His wonderful Spirit to continue the relationship. From the moment that precious Baby was born in Bethlehem, from the very first shepherd who believed that a Savior was born, we have had God with us. How glorious is His mercy!

This Christmas, pause to consider that there couldn't possibly be anything greater or more unfathomable than knowing that God, the Almighty Creator of the Universe, wanted [and still wants] nothing more than to be with us. So amidst all the hectic moments of the holidays, take time to be with the One who went to so much effort just so He could be with you!

Merry Christmas, and God Be With You!

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The True Meaning of Christmas

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