Christmas reflections

What is is about Christmas that makes it so special....year after year after year? Of course it begins with an unusual focus on Jesus that even the most secular minded can't avoid this time of year. Even pagans sing "silent night" and Jesus' name is mentioned within the greeting "Merry Christmas" billions of times. Could it be that Christmas spirit is about The Spirit stirring more hearts at the heightened awareness of Jesus during this month? What makes 20 kids melt down simultaneously at once during the sermon on Christmas Eve. I warned our Matt and Caleb to be ready for an audience that can be very distracting. Our auditorium was crawling with children as over 2,500 packed our building twice. The funny thing is that during this one service a year, even this ADD Pastor can embrace the chaos. The exception was during my sermon second service when I promise you screams were heard in every section of our auditorium..all at once. The timing was amazing...and I made a crack about it being "weeping and gnashing of teeth" that was the only way to describe what was happening. Where else can you go and sing Christmas songs like "Frosty", "Jingle Bells" and "White Christmas" with thousands of others. Of course our message is about Jesus, but we also embrace the whimsy and fun of the songs of this season. It is one of my favorite things we do each year. Of course, singing "silent night" acapella at the end is moving every time. Will Christmas Eve services still be this special and as much fun for another 20 years? If The Lord is willing, I'd love to be at Eastview giving a sermon at age 67 with kids crawling every where AND I'd love for me still to think it is a blast and not be an old scrooge. I think there's a chance..'cuz I'm pretty much a kid anyway and there's something about this season that brings the kid out in all of us. On the other hand, it could be that someone else is preaching and I'm the disruption :-)