I'll Be Home For Christmas

Christmas is really going to cost you this year, especially if you are a traditionalist. According to Jim Dunigan, managing executive for PNC Wealth Management (affiliated with Provident National Bank in Philadelphia), a person wishing to give his true love the standard "Twelve Days of Christmas" assortment (one set of each verse in the song) is looking at a total bill of $24,263! I am also sure that it will come as a huge surprise to all of the many "tekkies" out there that shopping on line will not bring you any kind of a bargain price. As a matter of fact, it will cost you almost $40,000 to buy the same gifts on line! Why is that? Because of the high cost to ship live birds.

The reason? Well, don't blame the partridge, which remains the cheapest item at $15. Maids-a-milking have a weak union, so you can still get them for minimum wage, however piping and drumming are on the rise. Behind the Christmas inflation were three factors: 1. The price of swans doubled from last year to a whopping $6,300.  2. It seems that the Philadelphia Dance Company rents its lords and ladies by the hour, so all that leaping and dancing drove the cost to a 50% increase.  3. The obvious arch-villain is the five golden rings, since the price of gold has doubled since 2008.

If all that isn't bad enough, it must be pointed out that this total is for the twelfth day only! If you figure all the repeat gifts, you end up with a bill for $101,119.84! Ho, Ho, Ho!

But if you think Christmas really costs you and me, stop for a minute to think what the first Christmas, the real Christmas, cost the Ones who really gave.

Of course, it cost the Heavenly Father His only Son. But did you ever stop to think that this was also true in reverse? Bethlehem, or Nazareth for that matter, wasn't any bargain even by earthly standards, and yet Jesus traded His seat at the right hand of the Father for it. And before you tell me that you won't be at church the Sunday's around Christmas because you want to spend the holidays with your family, consider that Jesus Christ, the reason for this season, lived on this Earth for over thirty-three years and never spent a single December 25th with His Father! That sort of puts the whole thing in perspective, doesn't it? Especially when you remember that no gifts were exchanged under a brightly lit tree during His life on Earth. If we are really celebrating the birth (day) of Jesus Christ, why are we the only ones getting the presents?

So go easy on the plastic credit cards this year, and lavishly give the same gift that God gave to us that first Christmas: "A Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." Be quick to tell others why Jesus really came to this world (Luke 19:10).

"I'll Be Home For Christmas",
Pastor David Blevins