One of our yearly Christmas activities for our youth at church was a night of Christmas caroling. This was an activity that I believe we all looked forward to. We would borrow an open cattle truck from one of the farmers in the church and on occasion we had to have two trucks. We cleaned the trucks real well, I mean, who wants to ride around in the back of a truck smeared with cow poo. We then loaded up several bales of hay to sit on. the caroling usually took place on a Sunday night in place of our weekly youth meeting. We always invited and welcomed other youth to come along. This year was a particularly cold winter, but the cold never deterred our activity. We dressed warmly, brought along blankets and most importantly invited the girlfriend/boyfriend as a means to provide additional warmth. Imagine if you can riding in the back of a cattle truck, nighttime, temperature around 20 degrees. In spite of this, we had a blast!
Our main objective was to visit the elderly, the shut-in, and those who needed Christmas Cheer. We also managed to slip in a couple of nursing homes or elder care homes. We loaded onto the back of the truck, wrapped in a blanket with our partner, hugged up tightly and off we would go. We sang carols as we rode to our first stop. Someone was delegated to ring doorbells or knock on doors to greet people and let them know they had a yard full of crazy kids singing carols and wishing them Merry Christmas. Most of the time, we would have entire neighborhoods to come out of their residences to greet us and sing along. We would load back up and travel to our next destination. We stopped the truck in the middle of downtown, bustling with shoppers, and sang our carols. The busy shoppers would take a moment from their evening and sing with us also. We even ‘cruised’ one of the local drive in burger joints. (well, I say ‘one of ‘, we didn’t have but one.)
When I was a youngster, celebrating Christmas was just that. We were fortunate to have youth leaders at our church who never forced anything on us, but presented opportunities to us and in turn helped us to understand the true meaning of Christmas. Christmas today has become a commercialized endeavor to capitalize on the giving aspect. In short, to make money on what should actually be the expression of Christian love for those not as fortunate as we may be, the love we have for our family and friends, and the love we have for a Savior, who gave the ultimate gift. I recently saw a report that atheist posted an ad asking “Who needs Christ in Christmas. Well I have their answer. Take Christmas, remove Christ, and what you have left is ‘mas’, meaning ‘more’. If you leave Christ out of Christmas, you are looking for more, and until you put Christ back, you will forever be looking for ‘mas’ or more.
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