As I reflect back on my Christmas’s past, I can remember so many of the good, and some of the bad.

But the one thing which does not leave me is even in the times I felt alone, my lord was with me.


A cherished memory of a Christmas past, came from when my children were younger and their grandfather was still with us. Children always seem to have the Christmas spirit with their innocence and joy.


The previous year my in-laws bought our daughter her first bike, but came to realize it was still to big for her, so they purchased a second one and put the first one in the garage attic for the following year.


The following year arrived, our daughter was about 5 and our son was 3. The children were sleeping and it was Christmas Eve. My husband and his brother were assembling the gifts for the kids. They brought in the bike from the attic and aired up the tires and were assembling our son’s pedal car in the front hallway. The rest of us were sitting in the living room talking (my father-in-law had been ill with cancer)...


Suddenly there was a large BANG…


My father-in-law jumped quickly out of his chair. He thought someone had come in and shot his boys.


Before I tell you what had happened, I ask you this, “What happens when air warms up in a tire?”

 

The bike had been in a very cold attic for a year. The tires looked low but in reality they were not. As the air warmed up, the tires expanded and exploded from being overfilled.


Needless to say, our daughter had a bike with a blown out tire under the Christmas tree…


But it didn’t matter, we had a humorous story to share and remember...

The family was together...

We were all safe…

And we were able to share our last Christmas with Grandpa creating memories.


The joy of Christmas did not come from the gifts under the tree that year, nor did it come from any material gifts in the years which have followed. It comes from the birth of Jesus Christ, Immanuel.


"The implications of the name 'Immanuel' are both comforting and unsettling. Comforting, because He has come to share the danger as well as the drudgery of our everyday lives. He desires to weep with us and to wipe away our tears. And what seems most bizarre, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, longs to share in and to be the source of the laughter and the joy we all too rarely know."

- Michael Card

"All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 'The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel' - which means, 'God with us.'" (Matthew 1:22-23, NIV)

 

We quickly turn to God in times of sorrow and struggle, in danger and fear, and forget him in times of joy and rejoicing. If God is the giver of joy and he is "God with us," then he must want to share in those moments of great joy, and even in those times of silly laughter and fun.