Advent and Christmas Meditations (Electronic book text)

Christmas, with its sparkling decorations and gaily wrapped gifts, is the most celebrated holyday in many people's lives. Christmas is even a holiday so brightly prominent is it in our culture. Christmas shines like the Bethlehem Star into the dark shadows of our workaday world. Christmas is the peaceful pause in the noisy hustle and bustle of our daily work and relationships. Yet for many the grueling preoccupation in the preparations for Christmas is with the jingle-belled material things: shopping, decorations, gifts, exotic foods, visits, entertainment, etc. Sometimes many forget the fundamental spiritual meaning of Christmas.