It’s Not YOUR Birthday!

During Advent, the four weeks before Christmas, both ministers at the First United Methodist Church of Crystal Lake have emphasized that Christmas is not your birthday

Think about how you and your family celebrate Christmas.

What role does the honoree play?

My bride bakes a cake and our family sings the “Happy Birthday” song.

Not much, but more than was there before.

Of course, there’s the Christmas dinner prayer.

Christmas should not be about “presents” with a “t,” as Senior Pastor Steve Bullmer put it last Sunday.

It’s about “presence” with a “c.”

So, “what do you give to someone who has everything?” the minister asked.

“The best gift is you,”

he continued.

I asked our Associate Pastor Darneather Murph-Heath after her sermon the week before for a message next year on how to turn Christmas into more a celebration of Christ’s birth than another holiday whose theme is greed. (Think pretty much every holiday but Thanksgiving.)

She said a former church staff family asked anyone who wanted to give them presents to select from a list of ministries they supported.

When you are throwing the birthday party for a spouse and have his or her agreement, that would work.

But, introducing that idea to relatives at Christmas…that might be a more difficult task.

The December sermon theme was carried on for the children’s Christmas program, a choral event entitled, “The Best Christmas Present Ever!”


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