"Did You Have A Good Christmas?"

"Did you have a good Christmas?"  That's the go-to question for the week following Christmas Day.  For that week, it replaces talking about the weather for casual encounters - with the clerk at the Post Office or the bank, with the server at your favorite restaurant, with the people at church the following Sunday.

I stopped asking that question years ago because I realized how DUMB it is.  Just read it and think about it. Go ahead.  Think it through.

What is Christmas?  Right, the celebration of the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  For Christians, how is it possible to have a bad celebration of the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ?

See, it's a DUMB question, isn't it!  (I'm not asking you a question.  See, I ended that sentence with an exclamation point, not a question mark.)

I understand that some people could actually have a BAD CHRISTMAS DAY, a BAD DECEMBER 25th.  I'm know some people experienced terrible stuff like house fires, traffic accidents, deaths in the family, and other negative events.  But for Christians who experienced negative stuff like this on Christmas, all they had was a BAD DAY, not a "BAD CHRISTMAS."

I also imagine that some people ask the question and mean, "Did you get a lot of stuff?  Did you get what you wanted?", like that's the most important thing.

Some people are very lonely at Christmas.  (But in spite of this, it's a MYTH that more people commit suicide than at any other time of year -  http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hide-and-seek/201212/is-suicide-more-common-christmas-time )  Most of us have probably spent at least one Christmas WITHOUT someone we love, or WITH a broken heart over a breakup, or after the recent death of a family member, or in another state because of a move.  We see other families all together, drive ways full of cars from out of town, and a constant barrage of feel-good Christmas movies on the Hallmark Channel (where every movie ends just the way you wanted it to!), and we feel an emotional emptiness.  But the truth is, nothing has changed from two weeks before when we were feeling fine.

When we focus on those kinds of things instead of Jesus, it's not just CHRISTMAS DAY that's a letdown!

Here's a good way to answer that question next time you're asked: "Of course I had a great time celebrating Jesus' birth!  Didn't you?"  (Yes, in spite of not getting a new car, iPad, engagement ring, riding mower.  Yes, in spite of this being my first Christmas without ____________.  Yes, in spite of moving to lovely Minnesota.  Yes, in spite of ____________ breaking up with me last month . . .)

*If you live in Minnesota, no offense.  It's the first cold state that popped into my mind.  I could've said New York.  Or North Dakota.  Or South Dakota.  Or Michigan, Ohio . . .)