Journey Continues...: Christmas essence..

Merry Christmas to everyone who pass by to my blog.
And I hope that you had a wonderful celebration with your family
and friends.
But what is Christmas?
What is the traditional Christmas?

Christmas - known in the old english as Cristesmaesse. A Christ's Mass. An annual commemoration of the birth of Jesus Christ. The celebration is centerly feast to the christian liturgical year, it closes the advent and initiates the twelve days of Christmastide.
CHRISTMAS IS A CIVIL HOLIDAY, celebrated by many people in the world.

The original birth of Jesus is known to be between 7 and 2 BC according to the histiorians, but it is unknown. The Western Christian Church placed the birth in December 25 which is adopted to be the traditional day of celebrating Christmas.

So.. I remember when I was still young. My family had its own way of celöebrating the Christmas. The family gathers and the table is full of different foods. The whole house smells like food factory.
I would admit that it was really better than today. Evrybody is gathering from afar and sharing stories about Christmas or just some fairytales. In my country Philippines, they use to dance or exchange gifts. It must not be that expensive but I guess that exchange gift is not actually a willingly gift to give. Give a gift to those who dont have. But anyways, thats the tradition I guess we have adopted from the americans.

Celebrating Christmas is not about gift. Its about celebrating the memory of the Lord Jesus Christ. How do you celebrate his birthday? In these modern days, we got so busy by thinking of what kind of gift we will give to our children, to our family and friends. We got so busy of ''what gift is it that I will get from them''. Jesus was born, and have sacrificed his life for us. Some might say, 'it is his fault, I never wanted to be a part of it, it was his decision' It was not even his decision. It was the father's decision. Remembering from the Genesis about Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. When they have sinned, people have lost contact with the Lord. So God was far from us then. And because he loved his creation, he have decided to send his ONLY SON Jesus to save us. Through him, we got the power back to speak to God, to talk to him, to ask what we want, to guide us in our ways. And have you ever think of when we do something wrong by our parents, they scold us directly. But when we do something wrong imorally, we dont get punishment, but we feel our heartbeat fast, our conscience is calling back and think that God dont punish us right away. Because he said 'JUDGEMENT DAY'.
And Jesus came to us, it is his birthday. it is not about giving your child an IPAD, IPOD, IPHONE, LAPTOP, or material things. Its not wrong to give gifts. But the essence of Christmas is about LOVE, FAMILY, BOND to the Lord.
Have you ever thought of what gift does the Lord want from you?
Your life? your heart? your mind? your mouth?
He gave us life. what if one day, he will just take our our life just in one click and you doesn't even had time to explain yet and do what you wish to do.
Think that Christmas is about family ties, love to Jesus and in his memory we have freewill to speak with him no matter what we did, what we do, what we have and what we have, and what we have done. He does not come to convict us. He came with love and support to save our soul because our human flesh is demanding to be dipped into sin.

I hope that this helps you to reflect somehow.
Once again.. Merry Christmas and Happy new year to everyone of you..!!!