LJ Photography: Home for the Holidays

Christmas

This single word can awaken any number of emotions in us. For some, it evokes an excitement that comes with presents under the tree, hot drinks, and family gathered together. Others hear the word and watch their stress level shoot through the ceiling. The holidays are simply something that must be suffered through in order to get back to a treasured routine. And yet others even find this season to be their loneliest. It often merely acts as a reminder of what has been lost.

Christmas comes to us in many different forms.

So then what is it's true purpose? It can’t simply be the crazed shoppers and massive electric bills that come with the season. It can’t even be our traditions that we all hold so dear.

My past two Christmases have helped me see this.

This time last year, I was in northern Thailand living with 100 amazing kids at Khaodee Orphanage. It was perhaps one of the most beautiful and memorable Christmases of my life. Bamboo huts, Christmas parades, and Takraw tournaments brought me so far outside of my typical Christmas, I felt like I was on another planet.

(You can read in more detail about this time, as well as see many pictures here: http://www.sunnycoastthaibodia.blogspot.com/2011/01/thailandish-christmas.html. You should really check it out!)

But as heart warming and full of love as it was, it made me miss and appreciate the Hoffman Family Christmas more than I ever thought I could.

So being home this year, I was ready to go full force into Christmas by October.

And what a warm “welcome home” this Christmas has been. We’ve decorated the Christmas Tree, ridden the jolly trolley through Callaway Gardens, watched A Muppet Christmas Carol at the Fox theater, gone ice skating in the city, and even got to spend two wonderful days immersed in the magic of a Disney World Christmas.

But while all of these traditions make me indescribably giddy, while I’m treasuring every moment this Christmas with my family, these cannot form the foundation of the season.

Christmas is about one thing:

Emmanuel.

Our God is with us.

This is the time of year where we can stop and remember the day that our God came for us. In the cry of one little baby as he lay in a donkey’s trough, the God of the universe was proclaiming his love over us.

Our God is with us.

He is here. He is love. And he is our salvation.

Yet I often have to remind myself that the moment that the King of Kings came as a child was not simply 2000 years ago. It wasn’t some moment that happened a long time ago that we choose to remember this time of year. It’s a truth that we carry through out our lives each and every day.

Our God is with us.

In our Christmas traditions that we cherish, He is with us.

In our stress and anxiety through the holidays, He is with us.

As our hearts are breaking over someone lost, He is with us.

No matter what happens in our lives, good or bad, times of celebration or times of mourning, our God is with us. He loves us, walked this earth for us, died for us, and is with us today.

This is why we celebrate.

This Christmas, I am determined to soak in and cherish every moment with my family and friends. I’m going to savor the singing, the laughing, and every ounce of craziness my family has to offer.

But I know that no matter where I end up in this world, no matter who I spend my Christmas with, it will be a time of celebration.

Because we are never alone.

Unto us a child is born.

Emmanuel- God with us.

Our Magical Christmas