Sticky Christmas to You!

December 12, 2012 By
Christmas: A Blur of Boxes and Bows

Lasting Gifts
If I had to sum up my childhood Christmas memories in one word, the word would be slippery. Anticipation built like a stubborn fever, depriving me of sleep as I stared out the window from my bed, straining my ear for the sound of sleighbells flying through the air. Then on Christmas morning, we flew into a festive frenzy:  heaps of bright gifts waited beneath the tree, stockings were stuffed and Santa magic filled the air–even if Santa needed a little help from my dad. 
I don’t ever remember being disappointed on Christmas. Whatever the grown-ups in my world conspired to provide, it was perfect. Christmas was blocks and dolls and Tonka trucks and one year, wonder of wonders, a shiny blue Schwinn bicycle with a basket on the handlebars. Christmas was always abundant. 

Abundant and slippery. We tore into stockings, decimated the piles of presents, looked around to be sure we hadn’t missed a thing, and then forgot all about the giving that had blessed us just minutes earlier. 

I was a bit older when I began to care about what I gave for Christmas. And today, that’s all I really think about. Sure, I’ve got an Amazon wish list, and I may daydream now and then about some silly trinket, but the fact remains:

Now I want Christmas to stick. I don’t mean candy-cane smudged kisses from grandkids, although I love those, too. I want to build memories on Christmas.

I crave Christmas memories that don’t just linger–they carve a hollow in my heart and move in to warm my soul. 

But building these memories is a challenge, because I’m prone to believing the Big Christmas Lie.

Good giving, the lie insists, has to do with finding something different. Something unique. 


Good giving, the lie insists, is about tracking down novelty in a jaded, stuff-saturated world. 

And on December 26, we’ll stuff our new stuff into our overstuffed homes, our overstuffed lives, and 

Christmas will have slipped away. 
All the holiday hoopla will fade like so much wilted mistletoe and curdled eggnog. 
I want more out of Christmas. We’re celebrating the greatest gift ever given. We’re celebrating God putting on flesh and walking among us. 
We’re celebrating the everlasting gift of salvation. Shouldn’t we figure out a way to capture that joyous heart-happy cozy-love Christmas morning essence, lock it tightly into our weary spirits? 

I want a Christmas built on love. I want joy that lasts.

I want Christmas love in June, Christmas joy in September. 

I want Christmas to stick. 

Compassion International will help you make a sticky Christmas. You can give a gift that lasts. Give a gift that lifts a family from poverty. Give a gift that protects a child from malaria. Give a lifetime of clean water to some infant born a world away with no crib for a bed. Give love in the name of a loved one.

Some people believe that miracles don’t happen anymore.

They do. And you can be one. 

Merry, Sticky, Miracle-Making Christmas to you! 

7 Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed; 9 as it is written, 

             “He scattered abroad, he gave to the poor,
             His righteousness endures forever.”

                       2 Corinthians 9:7-9 (NASB)


Filed Under: 2 Corinthians 9, Christmas, Compassion International, gifts, poverty, salvation