it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

so if Thursday evening I sat a little closer to Heaven.

yesterday afternoon I sat a little closer to Hell … ok it felt a little bit more like trapped in hell.

Almost an hour to leave the mall car park.  

Three shops I needed to go to in all yesterday afternoon (of course not in the same strip that would have made it too easy).

Three shops and 6 hours.  

Bumper to bumper.  a traffic jam of people trying last minute to put the finishing touches on Christmas - and I’m quite sure carried in those cars were Christian and non-Christian alike.

Sitting there trapped in the midst of this consumerism and commercialism nightmare, I realized that I didn’t want to have anything to do with “this” Christmas.   If this is what Christmas looks like, I want to run the other way.   In fact I highly debated returning everything and just giving money to World Vision instead (which I seem to do more and more of each year anyway).   I was simply nauseous.  

This wasn’t  love expressed through the sacrament of gift giving.   All those cars bumper to bumper, this is national gluttony or greed or pride or something.   a visible sign of how our small, seemingly innocent, misguided attempts corporately become magnified and gross and damaging.  

Harsh, I realize.   Not very grace-full.   Forgive me, seriously.  

But better yet forgive me for my contribution to this corporate sin.  

I’m not sure what Christmas will look like for me next year.  

But it’s not going to look like yesterday.