It's the middle of December and wherever I look there are people struggling back to car parks or bus stops laden with bags. The streets are all lit up with seasonal decorations (the one's in Haslemere High Street are very good this year!) and shops are piled high with food and drink. Children are excited with end of term activities and the number of tea towels that have been pressed into service for nativity plays is impossible to count. There's an excitement in the air generally and as I walked through Festival Place, the huge shopping mall in Basingstoke, earlier this week I was struck by the mass of goods available that were being bought and carried away by far, far larger crowds than one would normally expect to see. There was an air of preparation for good times ahead, of parties, new clothes, special meals and presents to be given and received.
Christmas is marked with generosity or even extravagance as we celebrate the birth of Christ. We eat rich food and indulge ourselves in all sorts of ways. There are a whole variety of expectations that surround the way we mark Christmas at home; turkey, duck or goose; what we do to the Christmas pudding; is the Queen's speech watched live or as a repeat and even where Christmas is spent. I remember the triangular journeys Angela and I made each Christmas when we were first married between our home in Bristol and the two sets of parents living in Derbyshire and Surrey with us driving in alternate directions each year so we could spend Christmas Day with each set of parents turn and turn about. Our focus seems to naturally turn to the people and events which involve us. Have I got a present for nephew Nicholas? What am I going to wear for the lunch do? Whose turn is it to drive to that drinks party?
With all this busyness it is easy to lose sight of the real meaning of Christmas. Amid all the joyful customs and celebrations of Christmas, we need to remember the central truth of the Word made flesh for our salvation. It can so easily get lost amidst all the paraphernalia surrounding Christmas.
It is, of course, Christ's nativity that has provided the occasion for this festival. However, over the years we have added bits and pieces to the basic Christmas story to make it a "bit more special". The crib and nativity plays originated from the tableau of Christ's birth that Francis of Assisi arranged when he celebrated Christmas at Greccio in 1223. Our beloved Christmas carols, though a medieval tradition, only really developed from the end of the nineteenth century. The first Christmas carols had been words simply set to existing dance tunes. The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols was only created in the late nineteenth century and then made famous by the choir of King's College, Cambridge only in the first half of the twentieth century. Christmas cards are now an important business and the least said about some of the messages they carry the better. Some of the "round-robin letters" now enclosed are in themselves works of art complete with photos that seek to share special moments in peoples' lives.
Christmas, though is much more than the simple celebration of Jesus' birth and it is through the various services over the Christmas period that the church offers reminders of the true meaning of Christmas. It is so good to see congregations grow at this time of year as people come to worship because they feel at home with the familiarity of a story and carols that they know. Apart from providing a warm and genuine welcome, the church tries to tell the real story of Christmas by providing services that are not simply dominated by sentimentality or a feel-good factor that lasts only until we walk out of the door but which seek to provide a genuine encounter with the God who became flesh of our flesh in order to restore our fallen humanity. God sent his son Jesus to give us the perfect example of real life.
Christmas is a time for enjoying the riches of grace that god lavishes upon us and having fun as a community in the presence of the Lord, as well as for remembering the cost of the incarnation. Christmas, however, can also be a very lonely time for some people as they discover the true poverty in their lives; poverty of love, poverty of friends, poverty of purpose and poverty of spirit. We need to remember that not everyone is surrounded by family and friends, full of festive cheer and bonhomie.
I was reminded of this by an episode in the second chapter of "Little Women" by Louis May Alcott. The family had prepared their Christmas dinner before going to church and at the church they hear of another family who have nothing to eat at present, so after church they go home, pack their lunches into various baskets and then go to visit the other family and share their lunch with them. Having found "A poor, bare, miserable room it was, with broken windows, no fire, ragged bedclothes, a sick mother, wailing baby, and a group of pale, hungry children cuddled under one old quilt, trying to keep warm." the little women set about building a fire and sealing up the draughts and afterwards the story continues "That was a very happy breakfast, though they didn't get any of it. And when they went away, leaving comfort behind, I think there were not in all the city four merrier people than the hungry little girls who gave away their breakfasts and contented themselves with bread and milk on Christmas morning.
In this season of giving and receiving presents, when we remember all our family, when we enjoy a "good time" with close friends, we mustn't forget the real reason for Christmas. When we have celebrated the birth of the Christ child who gave so much out of unconditional love for us, what present can we give in return? One of the songs that I like is "Jesus, what can I give? What can I bring to so faithful a friend; to so loving a king? Saviour, what can be said?  What can be sung? As a praise of Your name, for the things You have done. Oh my words could not tell, not even in part, of the debt of love that is owed by this thankful heart". Wrapped up in those words is, I think, the real response to the Christmas present we have all been given.

I wish you all a joy filled and peaceful Christmastide.