Thanksgiving, We Hardly Knew Ye

Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.  James 5:15.  James is my favorite book in the Bible, and I love this verse.  I come to you today confessing sin, and asking you to pray for me.

Here it is:  I am ready for Christmas as soon as we put up the Halloween costumes.  I know, I'm hideous!  I'm covering my face right now.  I don't want to "rush Christmas" and I don't want to "forget to be thankful," but really, I'm ready to celebrate the birth of Jesus!  I'm ready to play Christmas music (ok, I did that anyway, and drove everyone in the office crazy), put out decorations and drink waisal.  

I am all about being thankful, and I don't want to go against George Washington or my pastor, but what's wrong with being thankful all year long?  (I know no one is implying we shouldn't be thankful all year long, I'm just being dramatic).  I stop short of putting Thanksgiving in the same bucket as Valentine's Day, but this year, I was really left with the impression that I need to learn how to show gratitude to God and others 364 other days out of the year.  (That is to say, we should be thankful all year long, just like we should show others we love them all year long.  Not just on one day out of the year.)

This Thanksgiving season, we had an amazing series called Thankful: The Life-changing Power of Gratitude.  It was really great, and we spent a lot of time as a church and staff evaluating all we have to be thankful for.  I spent a lot of time in prayer thanking God for all the wonderful things He has done for me.  But secretly, I was harboring thoughts of Christmas the whole time.  And what's worse, while I'm confessing, we haven't even put baby Jesus in the manger yet, and I'm covertly thinking about Easter.  I can't help it!

There are plenty of people who voice their opinions about Christmas decor and music before Thanksgiving.  They scoff at CVS, and speak of Wal-Mart with contempt.  I will stand with shoulders back and fist raised - and I will represent those who walk the isles of these stores hiding a smile and secretly humming "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas."  I say, "bring it on!"  In the meantime, I'll continue to be "thankful" for my job and that I can begin listening to Christmas music as early as August if I want to, under the guise of "planning worship".