Thank You Very Much, Lord!

Good Tuesday morning! Last night was my annual sniffle and sob through It's a Wonderful Life. Some of the sniffling came from my annual Christmastime cold that seems to have arrived at the same time. I wonder if there's a connection? Hmm, movie and a cold anyone? Personally I blame the dentist. Colds seem to lie in wait until disturbed by unauthorized drilling activities in my teeths. We'll just blame the old dentist. He's retiring at the end of the year anyway. Annual traditions can be (mostly) wonderful. The ones that center on Christ such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter are all full of joy and gratitude. The ones that involve communicable illnesses...well, not so much. We love the ceremonies of worship and the good fellowship of the Christmas tradition. The good news for us all is that the big celebration is this weekend!

The carols, the songs of praise, lights, trees, worship, gifts, cards, shows, movies, parties, celebrations, ah the wonder and joy of the season! I watched my seventh Scrooge last night too. This one is the musical version with Albert Finney in the title role. The script takes quite a few liberties with some key lines, and I startle the cats by hollering at the screen, but I do like one song in particular. As Scrooge is looking for a little tenderness related to this man's death - refusing to realize that the death is his own of course - the very musically-gifted and dance-trained peasants who owe Scrooge money express their gratitude. With the death of their lender, they are free of their debts it seems. "Thank you very much. That's the nicest thing that anyone has ever done for me." is the line that got me to thinking about the parallel with our own Savior.

The reason we celebrate Christmas so much is the long-expected gift of the Messiah. The Christ child born at Christmas was a gift unlike any ever given. Like the peasants we live crushed under a load of debt that we can never pay. However, Jesus did a nice thing for us by dying to pay that debt for us. Our celebration at Christmas should have a lot of Thank-you-very-much in it.

Merry Christmas to you! Bucky