December is such a special month, and I always love to do something extra special on Joe

for my favorite people, you, my listeners.

So all month long, I'll be highlighting some favorites from the OG series that launched

this podcast way back in the start called Five Word Prayers.

I know many of you will be very happy about that.

These short, usually five minutes or less shows are perfect for a busy holiday season

to bring you the hope and encouragement we all so desperately need.

So here we go.

At least once this season, we will probably hear someone preach

a sermon on Jesus being the reason for the season. And it's because we tend to need this reminder

every year as we madly shop, madly wrap gifts, madly go to Christmas parties, and yes, sort of lose

our minds with it all. Has Christmas gotten crazier in recent years, or has it always been this crazy?

And I just had to become a grown up to realize it. I'm sure it's the latter. People have

always struggled to keep God first in the holiday. That is really all about him. But here's what I

also want to know. None of us really want to go crazy during Christmas, right?

We want to enjoy this season. We truly do. We love it most of us. And we anticipate it like crazy.

And we're sad when it's over. As humans, we're wired to love all this season represents.

And so when we don't enjoy it, we feel super unfulfilled and sad about that.

So rather than just sit around and lament another crazy season,

I wanted to talk through what we can do to make it less than this year.

It's not too late, I promise.

Number one, I think we need to say no to some things for the sake of our sanity.

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