Ace Collins - 25 Days, 26 Ways to Make This Your Best Christmas Ever

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ZONDERVAN

25 Days, 26 Ways to Make This Your Best Christmas Ever
Copyright 2009 by Andrew Collins

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Zondervan.

ePub Edition July 2009 ISBN 978-0-310-56009-8

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Collins, Ace.

25 days, 26 ways to make this your best Christmas ever / Ace Collins.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-310-29314-9 (hardcover, jacketed) 1. Christmas Miscellanea. I.

Title.

BV45.C589 2009

242.33 dc22 2009015943

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible,Todays New International VersionTM. TNIV . Copyright 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982, by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

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Interior design by Christine Orejuela-Winkelman

In memory of Lena Shell and Minnie Collins

Contents

This book is designed to focus on the wonder and magic of the Christmas season. Christmas is about so much more than busyness and debt. Even in the midst of mad dashes to the mall, its a season of light that can bring out the best in everyone who chooses to discover and follow the Light. By digging into the history of the holiday and sharing a few special stories, highlighting some deep and rich songs, and citing a handful of treasured Bible verses, I hope to give you a small portrait of the glorious picture that is Christmas.

If you tend to dread the holiday, I ask you to think about this: what would life be like without Christmas? If there were no Christmas, there would never have been a Christ. And the world would be a much darker place without all that goes into the Christmas holiday.

Thus, putting Jesus back into Christmas is essential in order for each of us to get the most out of this incredible holiday season. What may surprise you is how easy it is to see the reason for the season in almost every facet of the holiday.

I hope you enjoy this day-by-day literary Advent calendar. I pray that you find it a useful tool in squeezing extreme joy and awesome wonder out of the Christmas season. Most of all, I wish that what you read here will spiritually enhance the depth of your holiday experience. Christmas can be the most fulfilling and exciting time of the year. No one should miss the chance to enjoy every minute of the holiday experience.

Finally, how we celebrate Christmas will define how we respond to the New Year. The spirit of giving, forgiveness, and outreach we embrace during the holidays can establish a permanent pattern we can follow every day, year after year. How great would that be? When you find a way to keep the Christmas joy all year long, then, like George Bailey in the beloved holiday movie, you truly have a wonderful life. I hope this book sets you on that course.

Mighty Christmas,
Ace Collins

Odds are that at this very moment youre surrounded or even bombarded by the sights and sounds of a modern Christmas. As early as the first week in November, some radio stations embraced an all-Christmas-song format that includes such classics as Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer and the Singing Dogs version of Jingle Bells. Newspaper flyers and television commercials have been alerting you to the must buys of the season. Add to all this the places you have to be choir practices, committee meetings, food drives. And then theres the endless ringing of the bells. Driving across town, it seems Santa and his elves are everywhere.

Like a hungry monster in a 1950s horror film, Christmas seems to be stalking you, all the while looking for new ways to consume your time, energy, spirit, and money. No wonder many people get so overcome with the anxiety of the season that they try to hide from all things associated with Yuletide.

As we look to the next twenty-five days and think about how to get the most substance and joy out of the holidays, well explore ways to restore the real message of Christmas. Well begin our exploration by taking a look at one of the seasons earliest traditions, which began long before the arrival of commercialization. By knowing and embracing the original concept of Advent, we power through the modern craziness and find the true spiritual aspects of the holiday. We discover the spiritual depth that comes from knowing the real reason this all began.

For many, Advent is a foreign concept. They have heard of it and associate it with the Christmas season, but they dont know what it means. Even most Christians dont know the meaning of Advent or how it ties in to the holidays. This lack of understanding is not only true for those who dont attend church; its true for millions who never miss Sunday services. Many denominations simply do not recognize this sacred Christian tradition. Others fail to explain Advent in ways that bring meaningful spiritual understanding to this custom. Yet to experience a rich and meaningful Christmas, it helps to understand and truly embrace Advent.

Lets take a look at why the meaning of Advent has been lost for so many. Before 1940 the retail holiday season was relatively short. Many people didnt even think about Christmas until around December 20. A great deal of the shopping and almost all the decorating were done on Christmas Eve. What transformed this time-honored week of Christmas into a full six-week holiday experience was World War II. With millions of Americans fighting the war in foreign lands that lay beyond two oceans, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked folks to shop and mail their gifts early. To ensure that loved ones overseas received their packages by Christmas, these parcels were to be given to mailmen no later than the first week in December. Thus, in 1942 the Christmas rush began before Thanksgiving.