The Reason for the Season.

WISHING YOU A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!

“Perhaps this provides an important distinction we should remember in our own holiday season. Maybe the purchasing and making and the wrapping and the decorating-these delightfully generous and important expressions of our love at Christmas – should be separated, if only slightly, from the more quiet, personal moments when we consider the meaning of the Baby (and His birth) who prompts the giving of such gifts. As happens so often if we are not careful, the symbols can cover that which is symbolized. In some of our lives the manger has already been torn down to allow for a discount stores running three-for-a-dollar specials…I, like you, need to remember the very plain scene, even the poverty, of a night devoid of tinsel or wrapping or goods of this world. Only when we see that single, sacred, unadorned object of our devotion – the Babe of Bethlehem – will we know why, ‘tis the season to be jolly’ and why the giving of gifts is so appropriate."                                                        
                                                                             --Elder Jeffrey R. Holland