I love Christmas. I love everything about it.  I love being with family around the Christmas tree early in the morning and seeing all the little kids get all excited about all the presents under it. I love seeing their big smiles after tearing away the wrapping paper and seeing their new toys. It’s such a wonderful time of year! I love the spirit of the season. I love giving good gifts and I love receiving them from people who care about me. It is time of love, and a time of giving; a time of joy and most of all, a time of remembrance.

All too often though I think that most important part of the joyful season gets buried under the cloud of a commercialized atmosphere which says “I got to get the latest thing, I got to get the best price, and I got to get it before someone else gets it.” The true spirit of Christmas giving is replaced by “me, me, me.”

It seems to be a reoccurring trend that the world forgets, and the Lord reminds. It is a pattern that seems inevitable. Let us get a head start this year, and let’s remember early before the worldly influences cause us to forget. Let’s focus on the three gifts we can give this year that will make it the best Christmas ever—the kind of Christmas that it should be.

The first is the gift of gratitude. In my experience, the people I most enjoy giving gifts to are the ones who are most grateful. Not that thanks are required in giving a gift, but there is something which warms my soul when I know that my friend really appreciated it. You see, these kinds of gifts are not wrapped in boxes, nor do they ever trade hands, but they are of far more lasting value than a tangible object. The Lord gave us his greatest gift; he gave us his life. He laid it down for us so that we may live, and he endured many hardships and gave us all his time and love so that we may know the way. It is his birth that we celebrate this time of year; let us show our greatest gratitude for this, God’s  greatest gift.

We can show our gratitude in many different ways. The best way to start is through sincere supplication to Heavenly Father. Talk to him, let him know what you are thankful for; tell him how much the gift of his Only Begotten Son means to you. Share with him your deepest and earnest desires to live with him again. Seek his help and guidance in how you can serve another and thereby being in instrument in his hands to answer the prayers of one of his children. Pour out your soul to him in prayer; this is a great start in not only showing, but increasing your gratitude this season.

As your gratitude increases your desire to serve and give will increase. This is as natural as that wonderful warming feeling that comes when you awake to a child’s voice which says so gently “wake up, it’s Christmas!” Gratitude and service go hand and hand. So what kind of service should we give? Well how about the kind that seeks not for the honors of men, but seeks only to do the will of God? It’s called Charity. No, not the tax-write off kind, the selfless kind! The kind you do when you expect nothing in return. The kind you even sometimes do in secret and the recipient doesn’t even know you gave it. I love this kind of service. What better thank you can you receive than to know that you helped someone and your Father in Heaven is happy with you? Yes, charity is the gift we should give this Christmas.

Gratitude and Charity, there is no greater combination. These two breed humility, patience, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, mercy, compassion and all other good things that the Lord has to offer. All these things are a gift from God, exemplified by a savior that was born to live for you and me. How grateful I am for him. Let us give to him our greatest gifts whatever they may be.

I think of the example of the little drummer boy:

“Come, they told me; Our newborn King to see; Our finest gifts we bring; To lay before the King; So to honor Him; When we come.

“Little Baby; I am a poor boy too; I have no gift to bring; That’s fit to give a King; Shall I play for You; On my drum?

“Mary nodded; The ox and lamb kept time; I played my drum for Him; I played my best for Him; Then He smiled at me; Me and my drum…”

This poor boy was humble, he knew who he was, and he knew who this Babe of Bethlehem was. He brought with him the only gift that he could afford. He brought his talent. He was drummer, and so he played his best piece, the best way he could, and won the approval of the Savoir with a smile.

This reminds me of a similar story later in the Lord’s ministry:

“And he looked up, and saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury.

“And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites.

“And he said, Of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all:

“For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had” (Luke 21:1-4).

Let us make this the best Christmas ever! Not for ourselves, but for others, and most especially for the King whose birth we celebrate this time of year. As we go about giving our all, worshiping him in both word and in deed the God of Heaven and Earth will not be able to withold his abundant blessing from pouring out upon the heads of his children (see Malachi 3:10)!

I close with you simple testimony that God lives. His Son is Jesus Christ. He was born of a virgin most precious and fair. He was born in a humble manger because there was no room for him in the inn. “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). I do so in his name, even Jesus Christ the Savior of the World, amen.