The After Christmas Woes!

Are you one of the millions of people suffering from the “After Christmas Woes”? What is the “After Christmas Woes”; well I’m glad you asked. The “After Christmas Woes” is an overwhelming, burdensome feeling that come upon a person after he or she has lost their mind due to the extreme pressure that the world has placed on them during the Christmas season.
Yea I know, you are probably trying to justify your “After Christmas Woes” by saying, I get this feeling sometimes from the stress at my job or from the stress of life in general. It is a big difference when you get this overwhelming, burdensome feeling from the pressure of life because the issues of life are out of our control. Wouldn’t you agree that life has enough stress on it’s own to begin adding more unnecessary stress to it?
Well you may be saying I celebrate Christmas because it is about the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Then if Christmas is about Jesus, then why do we let “The World” who has rejected Jesus tell us how we should celebrate Him? You do know the world has dictated how Christmas should be celebrated don’t you? If we were to ask Jesus how would He have us to celebrate His birthday He would probably say, if you want to honor me on my day you should keep the day holy. You should tell others about Me. You should do good to your neighbor.
Okay you say, this means I could buy my neighbors presents and gifts for Christmas. Yes, there is never anything wrong with buying your neighbors gifts. But we should not let “The World” dictate to us when we should buy these gifts. When we are under pressure to buy our neighbors, friends, siblings, parents, aunts and uncles, cousins, co-workers, bosses, mail carriers, garbage collectors, and let’s not forget our children who we give everything our little money and credit cards can buy, then this is not what Jesus meant when He said we should do good to our neighbors.
If we feel obligated to buy everyone a gift for Christmas, we are under bondage and we have allowed “The World” to dictate to us how we should honor the very person that they have rejected.
How does a person know whether he or she has the “After Christmas Woes”? Here are a few symptoms:
1)You are relieved that the holiday is finally over.
2)You spent more money than your budget allowed.
3)You feel burden when you think about putting away all of your Christmas decorations.
4)You are still stressed three days after Christmas has already passed.
I think celebrating Christmas is great. But since Christmas is a Christian holiday, I think that Christians should dictate to “The World” how this holiday should be celebrated. Jesus said, “If you love Me, then keep my commandments”. He never said if you love Me then buy everyone gifts.
Let’s not let “The World” dictate to us any longer how we should celebrate the person who died for us. After all, Jesus did say we (The Christian) should be the light of the world and the salt of the earth. Let’s stop following “The World” and let’s start leading.