So ... that is what Christmas is all about?

If you ever want to see the most selfish, self-center, heartless, non-compassionate people ever, just wait until November.  You get to watch them until the end of the first week of January.

No, I don't like the holiday season and I haven't since 7th grade.

I remember sitting in church when I realized how much I despised the last two months of year and how much they depressed me.  Now the mother of six and in my early forties, I still despise most of it and struggle to find the "Joy of Christmas" each year.  It isn't the Nativity hating atheist that does it to me.  It isn't the Yule loving Pagans.  It isn't Santa Claus.

It's the "Christians".

The very ones who are suppose to be focusing on the birth of our Lord and Saviour are the worse offenders of all .  Why?  Well, they're suppose to be setting an example of the love of Christ to the world and few of them do.  They don't care who is missing Thanksgiving with their family so others can pick up that can of forgotten cranberries.  They don't care who is working 14-16 hour shifts and having baked turkey in the break room while their spouse and children eat Thanksgiving without them.  They don't care who is missing their children open their gifts on Christmas morning so they can go to the movies for entertainment.  They don't care which children are parentless for the holiday.  They don't care who is missing their last holiday with an older or sick beloved family member in order for others to get more crap for people who haven't room for the crap they already have.

They just don't care.

And I don't know which is worse: the amount of greed and selfishness and the lack of compassion, or the fact that it no longer amazes me.

The human eye can see a candle flicker from 3.1 miles away (that is when the curve of the earth takes it out of human view).  On a dark night looking down from a mountain, you can see a candle from 30 miles away (Live Science).  I am so thankful for the lights of those who give so much during this time of year for those around them.  They do it all year long, and they give so much of themselves showing the true Jesus inside of them.  I am also incredibly thankful for my children who don't ask for a ton of stuff at Christmas, but are instead content with what they have.  It is because of the flickering lights in my line of vision that I eventually find the Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in the manger.

It is nine days until Christmas.  I am ready now to get a tree and decorate our home for the Birth of the Saviour.  We'll still have Santa and gifts, but most of all, we'll have Jesus and family.  And that is what this season is really about.