T’was The Night Before Christmas

T’was the night before Christmas and all through the house… Brings back all kinds of memories.

No one could have convinced me that I would ever decide to not celebrate Christmas!  There would be no one on earth who could have persuaded me, even with 1,000 bullet points.  Not my family, not my friends, not even my husband could have dared to keep me from celebrating what I saw as the most glorious of holidays, at least, not willingly!

After all this occasion was celebrating My Savior, My Life Giver, My Helper, My Friend, My Redeemer, and My Everything’s birth; and I loved every part of it!

The night before Christmas was to be no more for me, but it didn’t happen overnight. It was a process which I will try to handle with care.

There I was one starry evening, sleeping away, probably with visions of sugar plums dancing in my head. I had a very unusual dream.

In the dream, I saw Santa, like I had never seen Him before.  Santa was evil in my dream, and he was taking worship from My Lord.  It was a very vivid dream, and it woke me up, that’s how frightening it was!  I asked the Lord about it, and He began to lead me down a path I never thought I would go.  This path was leading me out of Christmas, and no more stockings would be hung.

I had no inkling of not celebrating Christmas, but I knew for a fact I needed to forget Santa. I threw everything I had about Santa into the garbage can.  For me to get rid of all the Santas was quite a task.

After all, I was the same person who had purchased a figurine of Santa bowing down to Jesus in the manger for my mom years before.  Now, Santa was like the plague to me. Santa was no longer a merry dude with a little round belly.

Funny how it works, I began hearing from all sorts of places how bad it was to lie to your children period – any kind of lie, even cute little surprise them lies. Lying to them about Santa who is so much like Jesus, and then telling them that  Jesus is real, but Santa is made up. This was really getting to me. The Lord was clearly opening up my shutters!  These thoughts had never occurred to me before.

I really thought that was the worst of it, Yeah! All of that behind me.  Now, I will celebrate Christ’s birth, but NO MORE SANTA!

A few years later, as I was preparing for Christmas, I believe I heard another strange thing from the voice of my God.  He asked me to not celebrate Christmas at all one year.

I agreed, of course. My thoughts were, Oh, I get it, guess He must want me to fast Christmas.  Well, if I could convince my children, we could make it through. They knew about fasting, and the benefits of obedience to the Lord, but this was going to be a tough one, or so I thought.

Actually, I think the kids handled it better than me, and I really believe my husband was completely delighted, I had always called him a bit of a Scrooge!  Was I the only one struggling with this?  Okay, the Lord wants me to fast Christmas this year, and then, it will be over, and I will get back to all the Christmas cheer!  Surely this holiday season would go by more rapid than eagles.

When what to my wondering eyes did appear, more reasons for not ever celebrating came to my ear.  First, it was shocking how many people the Lord brought upon my path to confirm His wishes through teachings, conversations, or personally.

It was like every Christmas tradition was being smashed to bits. The Lord was confirming to me over and over again His wishes for me and my family.

The whole origin of this celebration was becoming suspect, in spite of myself. One thing after the other began falling in my lap. Preachers whom I respected were confirming what I felt the Lord was telling me in my quiet times.

Everything I thought was so precious about this event, was dashing away, dashing away, dashing away all! It was amazing, how the Lord began to put the pieces of a puzzle in place when I was able to listen.

Am I saying that you should decide to not celebrate Christmas?  I don’t really know.

All I know is, as dry leaves before the wild hurricane fly, the Lord has led me down this path. I have decided to not celebrate Christmas, and there is no turning back, no turning back!

Charleen