Merry Christmas… really?

outoffocus_christmas_lights_1959351While walking through our neighborhood, it’s lovely to see the creative scenery on display for Christmas:  twinkling lights, candles in windows, red, green, and multi-colored adornments everywhere. Each lawn dressed to the nines.

There was a time when we first bought our house that I didn’t really care to dress it up with lights. The festoonery, to me, was just that. A carnival display. Not for my Lord. He is worth so much more.

For several years, probably a decade, to view our house from the street, one might conclude the people inside did not celebrate Christmas. Then several years ago, a thought hit me. Our house looked dead.

Shouldn’t we have something to show for our love for the Lord? Even though he wasn’t really born in the winter, the historians tell us, still we felt the need to celebrate His birth.

I’d never been a fan of purchasing a dead tree–cut down, dragged into the house, pine needles everywhere, a potential fire hazard, animals could pull it down, although we don’t have animals, but you never know when a neighbor’s dog might amble through the front door. (It’s happened.) Then after Christmas, it’s dragged back out of the house and discarded at the street. Just what is the point?

So since we have a tree out front that’s there all year round–alive and well–I decorated that one. A dozen Christmas balls and a string of lights later, there is the Cantell family Christmas tree.

As our family celebrates the birth of the Lord every day, this was the perfect solution to our formerly Jewish home.

Merry Christmas, everyone!