Welcome to the Feminid Podcast. This is Nancy Wilson. Thanks so much for joining me today.

By the time this podcast drops your Thanksgiving celebrations will be over, but the dishes might not be done yet.

Even so, we're moving on now to the topic of Christmas.

Some of you, probably a lot of you, have had dramatic changes in your lives since last Christmas.

And a few of you, including some of my dear friends, are going to be widows for the first time this Christmas. Others have suffered

miscarriages or lost dear ones. Some have family members with serious illnesses or children who are

far away from the Lord. So, in other words, you may have some heavy challenges facing you this

year for the first time as you walk through the holidays.

And this may be your first Christmas that you're carrying a heavy load of grief and pain.

And it may seem impossible to celebrate Christmas like you have in the past, but we must remember

what Christmas is. Christmas marks the

earthly arrival of our Lord Jesus. It really is a remarkable event that is stamped on our

calendars year after year in so many places around the world. Christmas belongs to us. It is our high festival celebrating our

Christian faith. Over the centuries, it has taken on a lot of baggage, and one of those central

pieces of baggage is this hunt for the true meaning of Christmas. As my daughter Rachel says, the Hallmark movies are always

about searching for this true meaning, and at the end, they find it by drinking cocoa by the fire.

But this is a Christless Christmas, which is no Christmas at all. We've all heard this kind of propaganda about Christmas,

and we should be careful that we don't allow the foolishness to contaminate our own thinking.

What is that propaganda? There's this thinly veiled lie called Christmas sentimentalism

that Christians must beware. This sentimentalism teaches us that somehow,

if only we can decorate just right and buy the right gifts and light the candles and set the scene and the tone

just so, we will catch that elusive, emotional state that is called the Christmas spirit.

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