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Wednesday, November 26, 2008

'Tis the Season to Be STRESSED OUT!

I love this time of year. I really do. The fall colors are beautiful. The cool air is refreshing. The holidays are full of joy and time spent with family. I love having the opportunity to celebrate the birth of Christ and a season to remember how much I have to be thankful for.

What I don't like about this time of year is how busy I become. Between Thanksgiving dinners, Christmas plays, programs, and presents, plus the various other obligations that come up this time of year, I find myself overwhelmed and not very much in the "holiday spirit." As of right now, I don't have all my food for Thanksgiving, I've only bought one Christmas present, and my December calendar is SCARY!

Could it be, like so many other things in our lives, we've complicated the joy right out of the holidays? If I'm not mistaken, the Christmas carol says, "Joy to the World" not "Stress to the World." We have to be very careful not to get so caught up in the holidays that we forget what they're truly about. They are supposed to be a time of remembrance, a time of praise, a time of thanksgiving, and a time of celebration. Let's be sure to keep this in mind as we jump from one Christmas cantata to another. It's important that we not lose our focus (which is really easy to do when we're under so much stress).

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