That’s encouraging to hear.

Astrid,

Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to add your thoughts. I appreciate it.

Allow me to say that this is more a conversation starter than an actual well thought out opinion piece.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with buying gifts for loved ones and enjoying great food etc. I enjoy all those things… as well as the coffee, movies, birthday presents etc.

But I do think we should be open to being challenged to hold these things in balance and we should be open to be questioned about our lifestyles. We live in a world where it’s very easy to give into and justify our excess. The point of this bit of writing is to challenge that.

What you said here is my point – you captured it well:

I think to be more balanced we should all consider scaling back and be generous to our families with our love gifts or not and with the poor in the world – and there are poor struggling kids in america too often due to broken families.

Guilt should not drive us, but guilt and feeling challenged are not the same thing. Let’s enjoy life to its fullest and understand how much we have, but let’s also understand the responsibility we have with the things we have been given. Let’s allow the challenge of balance and global responsibility to inform our lives. When we do so, I have a sneaking suspicion we may value our lives even more

Consumerism is a huge problem which comes out at Christmas but does that mean its wrong for a family to buy each other presents as a act of love towards each other. To spend quality time as a family. I’m just a bit wary of extreme views out there that seem to be just guilt inducment

If you do think so then you should apply that principle in every area of your life and never go out for coffee, accept birthday presents or go see movies because there are people in the world who are hungry.

I think to be more balanced we should all consider scaling back and be generous to our families with our love gifts or not and with the poor in the world – and there are poor struggling kids in america too often due to broken families.

I would our genourosity to come from our hearts not just gulit

Perhaps it isnt Christmas that sucks, more how people choose to celebrate it that sucks.

Last Sunday i preached at Chruch, a Christmas sermon, based on what Jesus did and said, much of the material come from the Advent Conspirary website.

This week i was blown away to get a call from a lady in the church, she had decided this Christmas to do something different, she had called the local prison offering to take in home baking to the immates, sadly they dont take home baking, but happy to take in baking from a shop that is still sealed.

We shared this Story at church yesterday, today i arrived at my office and found bags of baking sitting at my office door.

Whiles its not water for those who desperately need it, it is encouraging to see people caring for others.

For anyone else who may have the chance to share with others, the Advent Conspirary site has great resources, together we can help make the reality of Christmas better for people we may never meet. How cool is that!

Thanks for the posts frank, really gets ya thinking