Happy Birthday Santa?

Ask anyone who knows me well and they will tell you that I'm not all about buying nor receiving a ton of gifts on my birthday or any other holiday. However, I love spending time with all the people I love. I guess that's why Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It seems like Thanksgiving is the only holiday where we actually celebrate it how we're supposed to. We get together, hang out, eat, and give thanks. Unfortunately, I feel kind of bad that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday over Christmas and Easter, especially since I'm a Christian. 

Thinking about it now, if I had grown up celebrating Easter and Christmas how they were supposed to be celebrated and experienced, maybe I would have a greater respect and love for them. Don't get me wrong, I love what Christmas and Easter stand for, but there always seems to be something missing during these holidays. 

As a kid my parents made me do and go to everything my church had to offer related to these holidays. But what my churches did never appealed to me as a kid. Everything seemed to be boring. And even now as a pastor, I still feel like some of the stuff done in churches is boring and seemingly unauthentic in its attempt to make these holidays fun and accurately celebrated.

For instance, it seems like there is a lot of hype and tons of parties leading up to December 25th that don't have that much to do with what Jesus stood for at all. Then on that big day, everybody wakes up, looks at their presents, and spends the rest of their day playing with them and calling everyone they know about the presents they received. When that wears off, we end up laying around trying to rest up from the previous weeks parties.  

Maybe I've missed something along the way, but didn't Christ come to set the example on how to live? If so, then maybe we should spend our time over Christmas working to give back to the community (especially if we are going to wear WWJD bracelets!). I can't recall Jesus saying or acting on overindulging ourselves in consumerism, although He did go to parties! If anything, and I admit I'm not a Bible scholar, I can't find where Jesus played secret Santa with the disciples or showed up for Christmas dinner (I guess that actually would have been His birthday dinner) with his family.

For kicks and giggles, let's just say that Jesus did have birthday parties. As typical for birthday parties, we give gifts to the birthday boy or girl out of respect. We don't typically show up at the party with gifts for everyone. Even at Jesus' birth people brought Him and Him alone gifts. As much as I love that Santa brings gifts to everyone, I just can't find him or his reindeer in Scripture anywhere, and trust me, I want to!

So if we are to give out of respect for the birthday person, then are we respecting Christ when we act and do what He didn't and, I would argue, wouldn't do? By all means, let's celebrate Santa's birthday too if we want, but let's not mix up who we are celebrating. Please hear me out, I'm not against Santa and all the cute little reindeer, or the Christmas music that I have already began singing. I guess I'm just saying, lets make Christmas a time where we are respecting Christ, where we are getting together to celebrate Him, and not celebrate how much money we made over the year by blowing it on gifts for all the people who made it on Santa's "good" list.

Thoughts?