Christmas: The day on which Christians celebrate the birth of a baby who would become the Light of the World, but began His time on Earth more humbly than any of us can imagine.
That baby would grow up to remind us to “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ … ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (condensed from Mark 12:30-31).
And so we celebrate with family, friends, food, lights and gifts. Those gifts are only a pitiful reminder of the Gift we were given, and the instruction to love. Today we take joy in the opportunity to exchange them, anyway.
We rejoice that there are those among us willing and able to do what they can to make sure all have a Merry Christmas. We rejoice that we live in a country where we are free to celebrate this and the other observances that fall at this time of year. We rejoice that for millennia we have been able to cherish “good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.”
In this dark, cold time of year we know there is a Light, and that we are meant to share it. We are meant to give “Glory to God in the highest,” and to sing for “peace, good will toward men.”
Though they may not be gold, frankincense or myrrh, today’s presents give us a chance to remember it is, truly, better to give than to receive; and that we are to carry that spirit not just today, but every day of our lives.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
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“Christmas is the spirit of giving without a thought of getting. It is happiness because we see joy in people. It is forgetting self and finding time for others. It is discarding the meaningless and stressing the true values.”
— Clergyman Thomas S. Monson
“Christmas, my child, is love in action. Every time we love, every time we give, it’s Christmas.”
— Actress Dale Evans
