The message of Christmas is simple: God loved us, so He sent His son to us. We’re celebrating His birthday.
Ways to celebrate this gift to us are many, and bring peace and joy to us, knowing that God loves us. We can spend time with those we love. We can spend time with those that need love. We can give gifts to show our love.
And then there are horrible ways to honor this gift. Here’s a sample from today’s news:
Focus on the shopping. Shopping is war.
Shopping is war.
The battle is not just among the jostling crowds at the sale bins and cash registers in these pre-Christmas days; it is also between warring factions of our own brains, some economists and neuroscientists say.
Recent studies suggest that each buying decision plays out in the brain as a fight between a pleasure center seeking the bliss of acquisition and an aversion center seeking to avoid the pain of paying.
Waste money on consumerism. With so many needy people around the world, lining up a day before Christmas to overpay for a limited-edition set of sneakers is a complete waste of time and money. Before you spend $2000 trying to get something that moths and rust will destroy, try to imagine how many low-cost sneakers you could buy for the millions of people in this world that have no shoes.
Criticize Santa. Criticize parents for lying to their children instead of nurturing imagination in children.
Vandalize a nativity scene. It’s a sad commentary that churches have to outfit baby Jesus with a GPS to catch petty thieves trying to ruin Christmas for others.
It’s easy to kill the Christmas spirit, but in doing so, you miss the gift that was meant for you.
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Chasing the Wind 
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