A week today it'll be Christmas Day, and I know for many of you, especially those of

you who are moms in our podcast community on Things Unseen, this is just one of the

busiest weeks of the year.

And some of us revel in the holiday season and all the events we just love planning,

we enjoyed doing, but there are others of us who rather dread it.

And what we feel is not Christmas anticipation and joy, but pressure and then exhaustion.

And no matter what others say in telling us that we can do without all the fuss and

keep things simple, we still hear an accusing voice telling us that we've not done enough

we need to do more and we need to do it better.

And both kinds of people, indeed both kinds of Christians, will this Christmas be listening

to their minister's sermons?

And you know, when it comes to Christmas, there are also two kinds of preachers, those

who love it and those who dread it.

For the truth is, the more familiar the story, the greater the pressure most ministers

and pastors and preachers actually feel preaching about it.

The weight of the occasion can crush them rather than carry them.

But if you think about it underneath these different feelings we have, we actually all

need one in the same thing, don't we?

We all need the real message of Christmas.

Minister sometimes, probably often and maybe even every advent season, tell their congregations

that Christmas is perhaps the most secularized time of the year and warn them not to fall

into that trap.

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