The Christmas Creep
Have you experienced the "Christmas creep"? I'm not talking about some kind of unsavory character dressed as an elf. Christmas creep is the phenomenon where the Christmas season seems to begin earlier and earlier every year. You go out to do your regular shopping in October, and instead of seeing all Halloween decorations, Target already has their Christmas decorations up. It used to be stores would wait until the day after Thanksgiving, but I've already heard Christmas music when I've been out.
Some people are starting to push back. The Simonis family of San Antonio put out Christmas decorations on November 1 this year. Claudia Simonis is pregnant, and she wanted to get the decorating done before she was too close to her due date to help. But only three days later, the Simonis family received a letter from their HOA telling them to take down their decorations until it was closer to Christmas.
Maybe it throws you off a little when you see Christmas decorations up at the wrong time of year. You hear Christmas music after the holiday's over. You see someone's house still decorated with Christmas lights in July. You think, perhaps sarcastically, "Are they celebrating Christmas year-round?"
Even if we don't decorate the church for Christmas all year, or sing our favorite Christmas hymns in June, we do celebrate Christmas all year long. At Christmas, "the Word became flesh" (John 1:14). The eternal, invisible God became a human being. God came down from heaven to live with us.
All year long, we follow the God-man. We see him encounter the devil in the wilderness, fighting off Satan's temptations. We see him healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, and casting out demons. We hear him reveal his Father, our Father, in his teaching. We watch as he never fails to keep God's commandments for us. We look on as our God dies to save us from sin. We rejoice as this man, once dead, rises from the grave with the promise that we'll rise with him.
With each step Jesus takes, we celebrate Christmas, when the Word became flesh.