A television interviewer was walking streets of Tokyo at Christmas time. Much as in America, Christmas shopping is a big commercial success in Japan. The interviewer stopped one young woman on the sidewalk, and asked, “What is the meaning of Christmas?”

Laughing, she responded, “I don’t know. Is that the day that Jesus died?”
There was some truth in her answer.

Donald Deffner, Seasonal Illustrations, San Jose: Resource, 1992, p. 16

Take the year 1809. The international scene was tumultuous. Napoleon was sweeping through Austria; blood was flowing freely. Nobody then cared about babies. But the world was overlooking some terribly significant births.

For example, William Gladstone was born that year. He was destined to become one of England’s finest statesman. That same year, Alfred Tennyson was born to an obscure minister and his wife. The child would one day greatly affect the literary world in a marked manner. On the American continent, Oliver Wendell Holmes was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And not far away in Boston, Edgar Allan Poe began his eventful, albeit tragic, life. It was also in that same year that a physician named Darwin and his wife named their child Charles Robert. And that same year produced the cries of a newborn infant in a rugged log cabin in Hardin County, Kentucky. The baby’s name? Abraham Lincoln.

If there had been news broadcasts at that time, I’m certain these words would have been heard: “The destiny of the world is being shaped on an Austrian battlefield today.” But history was actually being shaped in the cradles of England and America. Similarly, everyone thought taxation was the big news–when Jesus was born. But a young Jewish woman cradled the biggest news of all: the birth of the Savior.

Adapted from Charles Swindoll.

In December 1903, after many attempts, the Wright brothers were successful in getting their “flying machine” off the ground. Thrilled, they telegraphed this message to their sister Katherine: “We have actually flown 120 feet. Will be home for Christmas.” Katherine hurried to the editor of the local newspaper and showed him the message. He glanced at it and said, “How nice. The boys will be home for Christmas.” He totally missed the big news–man had flown!

Daily Bread, December 23, 1991.

Christmas is a bitter day
For mothers who are poor,
The wistful eyes of children
Are daggers to endure.
Though shops are crammed with playthings
Enough for everyone.
There might as well be none.
My purse is full of money
But I cannot buy a toy;
Only a wreath of holly

I came across a collection of letters that children wrote to Santa Claus. Some of them were pretty good. One said, “Dear Santa, you did not bring me anything good last year. You did not bring me anything good the year before that. This is your last chance. Signed, Alfred.”
My favorite went like this: “Dear Santa, there are three little boys who live at our house. There is Jeffrey; he is 2. There is David; he is 4. And there is Norman; he is 7. Jeffrey is good some of the time. David is good some of the time. But Norman is good all of the time. I am Norman.” But we aren’t Normans. We’re shepherds.

Bruce Thielemann, “Glory to God in the Lowest,” Preaching Today, Tape No. 75

Pastor Clifford S. Stewart of Louisville, Kentucky, sent his parents a microwave oven one Christmas. Here’s how he recalls the experience:

“They were excited that now they, too, could be a part of the instant generation. When Dad unpacked the microwave and plugged it in, literally within seconds, the microwave transformed two smiles into frowns! Even after reading the directions, they couldn’t make it work. Two days later, my mother was playing bridge with a friend and confessed her inability to get that microwave oven even to boil water. ‘To get this darn thing to work,’ she exclaimed, ‘I really don’t need better directions; I just needed my son to come along with the gift!’ ”

Leadership, Vol. 10, no. 4

We had attended a nativity program with our friends and their two sons, ages 4 and 6, and were impressed with the boys’ fascination at seeing the baby Jesus in a manger. The play was, indeed, realistic and convincing.

Later at their home the boys started arguing, and after ignoring repeated warnings to stop, their mother sent them to their rooms to ask forgiveness from Jesus for their disobedience. When the older boy rejoined us, his mother asked him if he had asked Jesus to forgive him. “No,” he replied, “I asked God because Jesus is too young to understand.”

Beth Gearhart, Billings, MT. Christian Reader, “Lite Fare.”

The legend is told of the time Satan and his demons were having a Christmas party. As the demonic guests were preparing to depart, one grinned and said, “Merry Christmas, your majesty!” At that, Satan replied with a growl, “Keep it merry my friend. If they ever get serious about it, we’ll all be in trouble.”

A little child,
A shining star.
A stable rude,
The door ajar.
Yet in that place,
So crude, folorn,
The Hope of all
The world was born.

Author Unknown

Each December I vowed to make Christmas a calm and peaceful experience. I had cut back on nonessential obligations: extensive card writing, endless baking, decorating, and even overspending.

Yet I still found myself exhausted, unable to fully appreciate the precious family moments, and, of course, the true meaning of Christmas.

My son, Nicholas, was in kindergarten that year. It was an exciting season for a six-year-old. For weeks, he’d been memorizing songs for his school’s Winter Pageant. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I’d be working the night of the production.

Unwilling to miss his shining moment, I spoke with his teacher who assured me there would be a dress rehearsal the morning of the presentation. All parents unable to attend that evening were welcome to come then.

Fortunately, Nicholas seemed happy with the compromise. So, the morning of the dress rehearsal, I filed in ten minutes early and found a seat in the cafeteria. Around the room, I saw several other parents quietly scampering to their seats.

As I waited, the students were led into the room. Each class, accompanied by their teacher, sat cross-legged on the floor. Then each group, one by one, rose to perform their song.

Because the public school system had stopped referring to the holiday as “Christmas” I didn’t expect anything other than fun, commercial entertainment: songs about reindeer, Santa Claus, snowflakes, and good cheer. So when my son’s class rose to sing “Christmas Love” I was slightly taken aback by its bold title.

Nicholas was aglow, as were all of his classmates, who were adorned in fuzzy mittens and red sweaters, with bright stocking caps on their heads.

Those in the front row, center stage, held up large letters, one by one, to spell out the title of the song. As the class would sing “C is for Christmas” a child would hold up the letter “C.” Then, “H is for Happy,” and on and on, until each child holding his portion had presented the complete message, “Christmas Love.”

The performance was going smoothly, until suddenly we noticed her: a small, quiet girl in the front row holding the letter “M” upside down. She was unaware that reversed, her letter “M” appeared as a “W.”

The audience of first- through sixth-graders snickered at this little one’s mistake. But she had no idea they were laughing at her, and she stood tall, proudly holding her “W.”
Although many teachers tried to shush the children, the laughter continued until the last letter was raised, and we all saw it together.

A hush came over the audience, and eyes began to widen.

In that instant, we understood the reason we were there, why we celebrated the holiday in the first place, why even in the chaos there was a purpose for our festivities.
When the last letter was held high, the message read clear: “CHRIST WAS LOVE.”

Candy Chand

“Once upon a time there was a man who looked upon Christmas as a lot of humbug. He wasn’t a Scrooge. He was a kind and decent person, generous to his family, upright in all his dealings with other men. But he didn’t believe all that stuff about Incarnation which churches proclaim at Christmas. And he was too honest to pretend that he did. “I am truly sorry to distress you,” he told his wife, who was a faithful churchgoer. “But I simply cannot understand this claim that God becomes man. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

On Christmas Eve his wife and children went to church for the midnight service. He declined to accompany them. “I’d feel like a hypocrite,” he explained. “I’d rather stay at home. But I’ll wait up for you.”

Shortly after his family drove away in the car, snow began to fall. He went to the window and watched the flurries getting heavier and heavier. “If we must have Christmas,” he thought, “it’s nice to have a white one.” He went back to his chair by the fireside and began to read his newspaper. A few minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound. It was quickly followed by another, then another.

He thought that someone must be throwing snowballs at his living room window. When he went to the front door to investigate, he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the storm. They had been caught in the storm and in a desperate search for shelter had tried to fly through his window. “I can’t let these poor creatures lie there and freeze,” he thought. “But how can I help them?” Then he remembered the barn where the children’s pony was stabled. It would provide a warm shelter.

He put on his coat and galoshes and tramped through the deepening snow to the barn. He opened the door wide and turned on a light. But the birds didn’t come in. “Food will lure them in,” he thought. So he hurried back to the house for bread crumbs, which he sprinkled on the snow to make a trail into the barn. To his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs and continued to flop around helplessly in the snow. He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around and waving his arms. They scattered in every direction – except into the warm lighted barn.

“They find me a strange and terrifying creature,” he said to himself, “and I can’t seem to think of any way to let them know they can trust me. If only I could be a bird myself for a few minutes, perhaps I could lead them to safety …”

Just at that moment the church bells began to ring. He stood silent for a while, listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas. Then he sank to his knees in the snow. “Now I do understand,” he whispered. “Now I see why You had to do it.”

By Louis Cassels

The hinge of history is on the door of a Bethlehem stable.

And beyond this there lies in the ocean, turned towards the west and north, the island of Niatirb which Hecataeus indeed declares to he the same size and shape as Sicily, but it is larger, though in calling it triangular a man would not miss the mark. It is densely inhabited by men who wear clothes not very different from the other barbarians who occupy the north-western parts of Europe though they do not agree with them in language. These islanders. surpassing all the men of whom we know in patience and endurance, use the following customs.

In the middle of winter when fogs and rains most abound they have a great festival which they call Exmas, and for fifty days they prepare for it in the fashion I shall describe. First of all, every citizen is obliged to send to each of his friends and relations a square piece of hard paper stamped with a picture, which in their speech is called an Exmas-card. But the pictures represent birds sitting on branches, or trees with a dark green prickly leaf, or else men in such garments as the Niatirbians believe that their ancestors wore two hundred years ago riding in coaches such as their ancestors used, or houses with snow on their roofs. And the Niatirbians are unwilling to say what these pictures have to do with the festival, guarding (as I suppose) some sacred mystery. And because all men must send these cards the marketplace is filled with the crowd of those buying them, so that there is great labour and weariness.

But having bought as many as they suppose to be sufficient, they return to their houses and find there the like cards which others have sent to them. And when they find cards from any to whom they also have sent cards, they throw them away and give thanks to the gods that this labour at least is over for another year. But when they find cards from any to whom they have not sent, then they beat their breasts and wail and utter curses against the sender; and, having sufficiently lamented their misfortune, they put on their boots again and go out into the fog and rain and buy a card for him also. And let this account suffice about Exmas-cards.

They also send gifts to one another, suffering the same things about the gifts as about the cards, or even worse. For every citizen has to guess the value of the gift which every friend will send to him so that he may send one of equal value, whether he can afford it or not. And they buy as gifts for one another such things as no man ever bought for himself. For the sellers, understanding the custom, put forth all kinds of trumpery, and whatever, being useless and ridiculous, they have been unable to sell throughout the year they now sell as an Exmas gift. And though the Niatirbians profess themselves to lack sufficient necessary things, such as metal, leather, wood and paper, yet an incredible quantity of these things is wasted every year, being made into the gifts.

But during these fifty days the oldest, poorest and most miserable of the citizens put on false beards and red robes and walk about the market-place; being disguised (in my opinion) as Cronos. And the sellers of gifts no less than the purchasers become pale and weary, because of the crowds and the fog, so that any man who came into a Niatirbian city at this season would think some great public calamity had fallen on Niatirb. This fifty days of preparation is called in their barbarian speech the Exmas Rush.

But when the day of the festival comes, then most of the citizens, being exhausted with the Rush, lie in bed till noon. But in the evening they eat five times as much supper as on other days and, crowning themselves with crowns of paper, they become intoxicated. And on the day after Exmas they are very grave, being internally disordered by the supper and the drinking and reckoning how much they have spent on gifts and on the wine. For wine is so dear among the Niatirbians that a man must swallow the worth of a talent before he is well intoxicated.

Such, then, are their customs about the Exmas. But the few among the Niatirbians have also a festival, separate and to themselves, called Crissmas, which is on the same day as Exmas. And those who keep Crissmas, doing the opposite to the majority of the Niatirbians, rise early on that day with shining faces and go before sunrise to certain temples where they partake of a sacred feast. And in most of the temples they set out images of a fair woman with a new-born Child on her knees and certain animals and shepherds adoring the Child. (The reason of these images is given in a certain sacred story which 1 know but do not repeat.)

But I myself conversed with a priest in one of these temples and asked him why they kept Crissmas on the same day as Exmas; for it appeared to me inconvenient. But the priest replied, It is not lawful, 0 Stranger, for us to change the date of Crissmas, but would that Zeus would put it into the minds of the Niatirbians to keep Exmas at some other time or not to keep it at all. For Exmas and the Rush distract the minds even of the few from sacred things. And we indeed are glad that men should make merry at Crissmas; but in Exmas there is no merriment left. And when I asked him why they endured the Rush, he replied, It is, 0 Stranger, a racket; using (as I suppose) the words of some oracle and speaking unintelligibly to me (for a racket is an instrument which the barbarians use in a game called tennis).

But what Hecataeus says, that Exmas and Crissmas are the same, is not credible. For first, the pictures which are stamped on the Exmas-cards have nothing to do with the sacred story which the priests tell about Crissmas. And secondly, the most part of the Niatirbians, not believing the religion of the few, nevertheless send the gifts and cards and – participate in the Rush and drink, wearing paper caps. But it is not likely that men, even being barbarians, should suffer so many and great things in honour of a god they do not believe in. And now, enough about Niatirb.

By CS Lewis From Compelling Reaon p162

A friend of mine was in front of me coming out of church one day, and the preacher was standing at the door as he always is to shake hands. He grabbed my friend by the hand and pulled him aside.

He said, ‘You need to join the Army of the Lord!’

My friend said, ‘I’m already in the Army of the Lord, Pastor.’

The pastor said, ‘How come I don’t see you except at Christmas and Easter?’

He whispered back, ‘I’m in the secret service.’

Loyal Jones and Billy Edd Wheeler, ea., Hometown Humor, USA (Little Rock, Ark.: August House, 1991), 101.

In 1947, Eleanor Munro contracted tuberculosis. It came on so fast and lodged in such a difficult place – the lower lobe of her lung – that it stymied every doctor who tried to help her.

To have a tubercular cavity in the lower lobe of the lung is rare. Conventional treatments, and you have to remember that this was in the days before antibiotics were developed to treat TB, all failed. Finally, Eleanor was listed as a hopeless case and sent to die at the TB annex of St. Martha’s Hospital in Antigonish, Montreal. It was December 1947.

When Eleanor arrived at St. Martha’s, She was 23, the mother of a year-old child. She had weighed 125 pounds when she was first diagnosed with tuberculosis. She was down to 87 pounds when she arrived at St. Martha’s. There was no beauty left in her, but even at that last stage of her fight with TB, she had not lost her smile. And it was that smile, and her quiet acceptance of her fate, that caused Dr. Joseph McDougall, head of the annex, to make one more attempt to save her life. He phoned a doctor in New York who was experimenting with a new procedure in which air was forced into the cavity below the lungs, pushing the diaphragm up against
the lung. This pressure, it was hoped, would force the TB cavity to shut, allowing it to grow back together.

The next day, they tried the procedure, but it nearly killed Eleanor. She simply could not tolerate the amount of pressure required to give the lungs a chance to heal. After the procedure, Dr. McDougall told her that medically, they were whipped. If anything was to be done to save her, it must come from God.

Eleanor took it quietly. Then she made a request of the Doctor. “If I’m still alive on Christmas Eve, I would like your promise that I can go home for Christmas.”

McDougall knew she shouldn’t. She was highly contagious. However, not believing she could survive so long, he gave her his promise. And against all odds, she still clung to life on Christmas Eve. And although her condition was worsening, she held the doctor to his promise. So, warned against contact with her child and instructed to wear a surgical mask when talking to others, an ambulance took her home.

She was returned to St. Martha’s the next day, Christmas Day. Daily, her condition worsened. Yet, Eleanor clung to life. At the end of February, she weighed less than 80 pounds. Then, a new “complication” set in. She became nauseous, even when there was no food in her stomach. Unable to explain this new development, McDougall called in a senior doctor. Also unable to find anything wrong, he jokingly asked McDougall if he thought Eleanor could be pregnant.

The idea was ridiculous. There was no way a woman in her condition could conceive. Nevertheless, a pregnancy test was done. It was positive. When told of the results, Eleanor simply smiled, and blushed.

Eleanor and her husband rejected the idea of an abortion when it was offered, so Eleanor was fed intravenously. Every day, the staff at St. Martha’s expected her to die. Then, an amazing thing began to happen. By the end of March 1948, Eleanor’s condition began to improve. Her fever went down. She regained an appetite and began to put on weight. A chest x-ray showed that the TB cavity had begun to heal. It also revealed the reason: the child growing in her womb was pushing her diaphragm up against the lower lobe of her lung. The baby was doing what medicine had failed to do: pressing the sides of the deadly hole in her lungs together so that it could heal.

Eleanor recovered because on Christmas Eve, 1947, as she and her husband shared what they must have believed was their last night of intimacy together, God gave her a baby to save her life. A miracle, in miniature, of what God did 1950 Christmases earlier, when as a little baby, He partook of our flesh and our blood to save the world.

Source: Focus on the Family newsletter, December 2000