Thanks for visiting my blog, Serving Bread. Here you'll read stories, insights, reflections and ramblings from a campus minister, father, husband and Jesus-follower. If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to the RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
I heard a segment on NPR yesterday that Walmart and Toys R Us (among a few other major retailers) are bumping up their holiday season to begin on November 2 (Today). The launch of the holiday season is usually reserved for the day after Thanksgiving (Black Friday) where retailers create a frenzy by offering deep discounts.
They are doing this because they are anticipating a laggish holiday season in terms of sales and so they would like to widen that door to get as many customers in the door. Commentators were mentioning that doing this may make many items unavailable as Christmas approaches.
Will you jump on this frenzy? I hope not.
I wonder if i’s fair to say that how we spend our money for the holidays and how we think about the holidays will reveal much about our financial outlook. If we find ourselves in debt after the holidays, it probably reveals we are poor at budgeting well and living within our means. If we find ourselves stressed about what to buy, it may reveal an aspect of unchecked consumerism within us.
While many Christians will raise the banner at some point in the next couple months that “Jesus is the reason for the season,” I don’t think that there is that much of a difference between Christians during the holidays and non-believers. Christians are feeding on the consumer culture just as much as everyone else. This disease is infectious and it does not discriminate based on someone’s faith.
So a few things to consider:
Celebrate. This is a time of celebration and look for ways to celebrate God’s work and God’s incarnation in Jesus. Whether it is investing in a church community’s celebration or doing personal studies, this is a great season to dwell on God’s gift to us in Jesus.
Disciplines. The church calendar will enter into the Advent season in a couple weeks. Advent guides are readily available online (just do a Google search for them). Use these guides as way of deepening your soul and faith.
Set a budget. Spend your cash with a budget. Don’t get into debt because of the holidays.
Buy alternative and creative gifts. Rather than buy traditional gifts, you can make donations and buy alternative gifts to bless people. World Vision has a Christmas catalog that allows people to purchase needs for third-world families in honor of a friend or relative.
-----
If you enjoyed this post, be sure to grab the RSS feed. Also, please take a moment to submit this post through "Share This" above.
-----
|
Related Posts: |
When I was younger my immediate family and our extended family made the decision to forgo exchanging Christmas gifts with each other, and instead used that “gift money” to purchase gifts and food for a family in need. It was a Christmas morning tradition for us to visit and serve that family - a great lesson for me in being grateful for God’s provision, having compassion on others, and enjoying Christmas apart from all the stuff.
In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, they celebrate a another season of fasting (think Lent) to prepare for Nativity instead of Advent. That would be an interesting stand against the mass consumption of this season. I like Advent a lot, so I don’t think I’ll be replacing that observation.