Getting ready for Christmas

Are you ready for Christmas?  I hope your plans are well underway because ready or not Christmas will be here this weekend.  For many of us this "getting ready" has way too much to do with shopping, buying, shopping some more, planning, partying and preparing the house for the big day.  All of this is understandable and there is nothing wrong with getting ready to celebrate Christmas.

But how many of us prepare to celebrate one of the most solemn days on the Church calendar?  How many of us will make time this Christmas to truly celebrate the season that remembers that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us?  For those of us who happen to be Catholic, along with other Christians too, we have the blessed season of Advent that allows us to prepare properly for the coming of Christ in our lives.  These last few days of Advent are extremely helpful in putting the right focus on our Christmas preparation.  If we are off work tomorrow we can attend daily Mass.  If our parishes are serious about reconciliation than I trust there is still time to make a good confession.  Perhaps today or tomorrow there still may be time to adopt a family, donate a turkey or payoff someone else's layaway bill.  And maybe we can consider taking just some quiet time before the hoopla explodes to just be quiet, to ponder(as Mary did), pray and reflect.  What does the annual rememberance of Christ's birth mean for us?  How is it relevant to me this year?

One of the things I always like to do on Christmas eve, late in the night, is to just go outside, hopefully on a clear cold night and just gaze heavenward; look to the stars.  While so many of our little ones are dreaming of Santa circumnavigating the globe, I like to search for that brightest star and imagine that scene from Scripture, when Christ was born and the angels appeared to the shepherds.  Peaceful.  Quiet.  Marking time when He came to us as a man to save us from our sinful ways.

Out where I live tonight it is dark; the darkness only interrupted by the string of Christmas lights ringing the exterior of the house.  It's quiet too and oh so very peaceful.  Under this same sky, maybe just 10 miles due south the streets are busy and noisy and last minute rush, rush, buy, buy, traffic jams and confusion reign.  Hopefully, even that reality will give way to a beautiful, peaceful celebration of what Christmas truly is.

Getting ready for Christmas tonight?  Make ready for the coming of the Christ-child.  Find Him in the quiet and the still and the peaceful.