Why I'm really okay with Christmas before Thanksgiving

"Can't we just get through Thanksgiving first?"

Oh, if I had a turkey leg for every time I've spoken those words through the years! But something different has been gnawing at me lately. It started last year when I blared this in my house all through the month of July.

Yes. For real. I was really just being silly at first, but then I started wrapping my brain (or maybe it was my heart) around God dwelling among us. Something different happened when I took the Story of Christmas out of the context of the frenzied, holiday hubbub. GOD with us? God WITH us? God with US??? Oh, Emmanuel! Yes! You ARE with us! And so I celebrated the Joy to the World with the Angels We Have Heard on High, beholding the hallowed manger scene. At the pool.

And then this spring (and again this summer) I read this book.

Find it here

Eucharisteo. Does that make you think of Eucharist? Ever wonder why it's called that? 

"And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them..." (Luke 22:19) He gave thanks. The Greek word is eucharisteo. In breaking the bread, in facing the sacrifice for our salvation, He gave thanks. Can I not also? Can I not "give thanks in all circumstances" (1 Thess. 5:18)? 

Can I make it a lifestyle? Can I daily...no, moment by moment...recognize His blessings that He has poured all over me? Can I be aware enough to count, to give thanks, eucharisteo, one thousand of His gifts that He longs for me to enjoy? Things like:

23. Beautiful clouds announcing the arrival of a new day

152. Jacob after communion: "I want to do it again." Ah, me, too, Little Man. Me, too.

275. Pastor Mike and his heart for Jesus

357. Recognition of my weakness knowing that He is strong in my weakness

I'm making my way to writing down one thousand and in the process the expression of thanksgiving is becoming the habit of thanksliving. 

So this year, rather than "getting through Thanksgiving" before I celebrate Christmas, I desire to not only celebrate Emmanuel at the feast of blessing, but to bring Thanksgiving right to the foot of the manger. And to see the breaking of the bread and the cross and triumph at Easter on the table of grace and in the shadow of the Star that shown over the stable. Because all of it is God pursuing us, reconciling us to Himself, and I don't want to miss it. Perhaps Thanksgiving and Christmas need not be so compartmentalized. Regardless of what retail shelves tell us.

So I'll change out decorations and sing joyful songs and contemplate the gifts I have already been given and share the ones that will bless others. Before the fourth Thursday in November. And long after.