Wouldn’t you LOVE for this Christmas to be your BEST Christmas EVER?

Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.

Colossians 3:16-17

When you realize that there are just 29 sleeps until Christmas does it excite you, not phase you, or stress you out?

After my more than 29 years of anticipating Christmas, I finally have some advice that will truly change everything about your Christmas.

Actually, it’s not my advice… it’s Paul’s advice.

ONE THING you can do

to make this your BEST Christmas EVER!

Thank God every step of the way.

Having an attitude of gratitude is a game-changer for the Christmas season.

Here are just a five ways you’ll experience what gratitude can do for you…

   Thankfulness…

• helps you get a better night’s sleep.
• kills stress.
• positively impacts your relationships.
• helps you bounce back emotionally.
• improves brain function.

What does all of this have to do with Christmas?

God sent his only son Jesus to earth as a humble babe to free you from the tyranny of this world.

He didn’t send Jesus to make your to-do list longer, to empty your bank account, or to make you feel miserable.

Quite the opposite.

Today was a good example.

This morning I was headed out the door shortly after 8 o’clock.  My eleven-year-old neighbor greeted me as I opened the door.  It shocked both of us. For a moment.

When I returned several hours later, she crossed my path again and wanted to know if we could do something together.  I was just coming home to get my long-handled pruners for snipping some American Holly branches I spotted on the side of the road.  She got permission and then jumped in the car with me.  For her, this little jaunt was an adventure.

As I drove, she talked and I listened.  And I wondered how many times someone actually listens to her.

When I got back home, she carried my loppers up the stairs for me as my hands were full of berry branches and offered to pick all the leaves from the branches for me. That, to me, is a gift.  So, I asked her if she would like to come back in a half an hour and she did.

While she picked dried up leaves from the branches, I started fluffing my Christmas tree.

I confess, fluffing Christmas trees is torture for me.  But, it was made easier by two things.  One, a pair of well-fitting, lightweight work gloves Tim picked up for me a few days before and two, the opportunity to listen and pour into a needy young girl.

And yes… I realized the blessing and had a grateful heart in the midst of it all.

After the berry branches were plucked clean of leaves, she then asked, “Do you have something else for me to do?”

I gave her a gingerbread donut and then realizing that I have a helper, I quickly left the room for a couple bags of pine cones.

Last fall she and her brother went on a nature hike with us.  They had the BEST of times.  Seriously, I couldn’t believe how two kids could have so much fun walking through the nearby fields and woods.

I asked her if she remembered our nature walk and she did.  “These bags of pine cones are those we collected that day,” I told her.

Oh my goodness, she was so excited to look at them all again.  And happily went to work sorting the pine cones by shape, size, and color.

Sometime along the way her brother came up to see when Tim was going to be home.  And then asked if he could join us.  Actually, he might have asked if I had any work he could do.  These kids LIKE to work.

I put him to work, alongside his sister, sorting through the pine cones as I went from fluffing the tree to stringing lights on my tree.

With Christmas music playing, I sang along, and they laughed and giggled, and talked about their sorting and so much more. There might even have been little breaks for silly activities like doing planks for the count of 40.  And all the while my fingers flew across the needles on the tree, weaving in more and more lights until I was finished and their hero came home.

That could be Tim.

They like me.

A lot.

But, Tim is their hero.

Recently I decided to embark on this Christmas season with an attitude of gratitude.

Had I not, I would have told the kids I was busy.

And that would be true.  Too true.

You see, although I am grateful for the work, I have some unexpected work that will take a lion’s share of my time in the next few weeks and my plans and schedule got totally upended.

I could very easily have chosen to get swallowed up by my to-do list, but instead, I made a conscious decision a few days ago to choose thankfulness.

Now, in this season, it will be very easy to allow myself to get off-track and sucked into the rat-race of the season.  Instead, I’m daily choosing to allow the Holy Spirit to be my check and press on with an attitude of gratitude.

How do you get an attitude of gratitude?

Count.

You can keep a journal and write five or ten things down each day.  You could mentally count at the end of the day when you pray.  You could share your gratefulness with the world on Facebook.

What makes this exercise critical, is that our thankfulness should focus first and foremost on God and who he is and what he does for us.  I’m not saying that you shouldn’t be thankful for the people, events, and good things that take place in your life.  Obviously, I just wrote about two blonde-haired kids who spent a few hours of their afternoon, hanging out and helping me.  What I am saying is that when we focus first on God, we are able to set the compass of our lives so that everything we do and experience will be oriented by our compass (the Lord).

This focus is especially important at Christmas.

The one thing we want to do is to make our observation of Christmas more meaningful.  Not just for us individually, but also for those in our lives and those with whom we cross paths.

I would love to have you check in throughout the season and just before the  New Year to share how you found this simple, but the purposeful action of choosing gratitude to be life-changing for your Christmas season.

Let’s be thankful people and impact our world this Christmas with our attitude of gratitude.

And in the process…

You can make this your best Christmas EVER!

It’s JoyDay!

Start here to take back Christmas and get your joy meter soaring!

Please join me in thinking back over the past week and counting seven things for which you are thankful.

This simple exercise of counting and giving thanks together in this space resets our compasses and put our eyes back on the Lord. And ultimately fills our hearts with JOY!

I’ll start…

Thank you, God for…

1. scripture and how you show me new and wonderful things each day that help me live a more vital and vibrant life.
2. Your amazing love and grace and how this season of Christmas reminds me of Your wonderful gift in new and fresh ways.
3. my small group and our wonderful “Thanksgiving” dinner on Tuesday evening.
4. an extra job this week.
5. laughter and happy kiddos who love hanging out with us.
6. Jesus and the amazing sacrifice that was made on my behalf.
7. all the extra work that awaits us this week.  What a blessing.

Now…it’s YOUR turn!

List your ‘seven’ in the ‘share your extraordinary thoughts’ section below.  You’ll be glad you did.

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