reason for the season | Stray Thoughts

As I did for Thanksgiving, I want to take the next few weeks leading up to Christmas and post several things — anecdotes, quotes, jokes, poems, prose, etc. — related to the holidays. I have been writing and compiling what started out as a newsletter but ended up as a 12-16 page booklet for our ladies’ group at church for six years now. I love it: I think it is my favorite ministry. Usually some part of it touches on the holiday or season at hand, so I have collected a lot of things in my files over the years that I would like to share with you.

Should Christians Abandon Christmas? Sinclair Ferguson makes some great points.

The highest priority in Christmas reading, of course, is the Bible itself. Here are a few Advent Reading Plans.

I’ve already posted one of my favorites, a Christmas-based I Cor. 13. I think I need to read that at least once a week in December. Today I want to list some excellent Christmas devotional reading.

I loved this Story Behind Longfelllow’s “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.”

Elisabeth Elliot is one of my favorite people for many reasons. I received her newsletters for many years and hated to see them discontinued. Some of the Christmas-related thoughts from those newsletters stood out to me (Update 11/5/2020: The Elisabeth Elliot.org site has undergone a complete overhaul. These no longer link directly to the newsletter, but the newsletter can be downloaded from the site):

Christmas Is a Thing Too Wonderful
The Mother of the Lord
Christmas on a Bed of Pain
Crowned Because He Suffered
The Lord: Hidden, Weak, and Helpless
Do You Believe in Santa Claus? (second page)
The Nativity (second page)
Joy to the World
An Unusual Christmas Celebration
A Quieter Christmas (second page)
How Much Is Enough?
A Silver Star in a Cave (second page)
Little Mary (Scroll down)
Are Christmas Trees Okay? (Scroll down)

The holidays can compound grief for those who have lost loved ones during the year. The Most Difficult Time of the Year: How to Love Grieving Parents at Christmas had much good to say. I wrote about my own Christmas Grief due to the loss of both parents, my grandmother, and a friend during different Decembers.

This post is about not forgetting older loved ones, but it has some gift ideas for the elderly: Remembering the loved one who has forgotten you.

Finally, the morning and evening readings from C. H. Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening have stayed with me for years.

Here are some devotional thoughts from others that I have posted:

Ten free gifts for Christmas

For God so loved that He gave…

Mary’s Dream

If I were a bird

Christmas quotes.

Here are a few of my own Christmas posts:

God With Us

Not the Messiah They Were Looking For

Not the Savior They Were Looking For