Graceland's "christmas celebration" is about adding joy to your Christmas by offering words that amplify this seasons' true meaning. As an added bonus, we'll be serving this joy with a generous side order of grace, a splash of humor, and a touch of truth--to make it all worth while!
I hope you enjoy what's presented here. Please bookmark this page and drop back throughout the season because it will continually be updated. Each link with a new icon beside it indicates that it's been added this season. The newest articles are dated. May each of these articles promote a spirit of worship, peace and joy as we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior!
"Christ was content with a stable when he was born so that we could have a mansion when we die."
Top Tens
Articles
- Your Tidings of Comfort & Joy — "Sovereign Lord, as you have promised..."
- Milkweed Christmas — "I have no idea what took place to dampen my usual Christmas euphoria, but dampened it was."
- Chirstmas Figs — "Now is the time to express the fullness of that message of love and hope that has been ripening in our hearts."
- If Only In My Dreams — "I guess what woke me up in the middle of the night weeping was the thought this song suggests"
- The Lighter Side of Darkness — "Somehow I don't think the star was as big or as brilliant as we make it out to be."
- Mifflegorm — "The mifflegorm's sadness was very, very deep and had been caused by many, many things"
- A Christmas Letter to My God and My father — "I thank you for your loving kindness and your sometimes severe Grace."
- The Parade of Hope — "My first reaction was that they were trying to catch someone..."
- The Gift of "Water" and Coke — "It was all to do with money, and having 'one less mouth to feed' as he put it."
- The Rich Test — "He walked us through that eye-opening moment"
- The Gift of Freedom — "The journey one takes as a Christian often seems quite circular"
- Happy Holidays? — "There was one sheep, Rudolph, and what looked like a shooting target in the shape of a wild boar."
- Look Into Heaven — "These commands and words of power recently came to me..."
- The Brokenhearted´s Christmas Wishes — "I don't know how to pick up the pen or the phone with this broken-heart!"
- In the Santa Claus Line — "Suddenly, this little gal walked up to me and said, 'Will you be my Grandpa?'"
- Goodwill to All Men — "I truly believe that recognition of our common heritage is what will prevent another Holocaust from ever happening again."
- Christmas Away — "Jesus moved at Christmas time, too."
- Fearing the Christ of Christmas — "Christmas seems to highlight the fact that some in our society have a Godaphobia complex."
- Better Than A Rifle — "It was a cold clear night out and there was ice in his beard. 'Come on, Matt,' he said. 'Bundle up good, it's cold out tonight.'"
- Male Wrappers — "Men are not big gift wrappers. Men do not understand the point of putting paper on a gift just so somebody else can tear it off."
- The Christmas Tree — "Have we rearranged the furniture in the living rooms of our spiritual homes for the Christmas tree that is Christ?"
- Christmas Concert Theology — "Every Christmas concert has the shy kids who hide in the back, and the bored kids who stare at the ceiling..."
- The Power of Lights — "From the time she was a tiny little girl, we had this special thing at Christmas."
- The Christmas Wind — "The wind blowing outside my window puts me in mind of a Christmas wind. What is this you may ask?"
- Christmas: To be Continued — "One of the reasons I like Christmas so much is that people start acting like Christians."
- All I Want For Christmas — "On a piece of paper, write down what Jesus means to you. Tell me all about your faith and your relationship with God. Tell me everything."
- Is That A Red Alien Or A Green Santa? — "I am ever so thankful for those, forget-the-cost holdouts, who still light up our city with their heavy Watts of Wonder."
- A Season For Everything — "I wonder how many people have suffered the loss of a dear one this past year and are dreading the thought of enduring a Christmas without that loved one?"
- That's Why I'm Here — "I took him and cleaned him. I loved him and held him. I forgave him."
- My Loneliest Christmas — "As I came closer, I noticed that it was a cheaply made manger scene with a little candle inside."
- The RF Modulator of Christmas — "Now this is not the device that Marvin the Martian was so proud of..."
- Tree In The Morning — "Since it is the end of the year, I meditate on all the events of the past year. This has been a particularly "painful" year. By painful, I mean growing pains."
- All The Lonely People — "One phone call can change your whole perspective on a season."
- Christmas Lights — "Sometimes...I would just lie under the tree looking up, smelling the smell and gazing at the lights."
- Take A Lot - Get A Little — "How blessed we were to discover we didn't have anything to give at all. In fact, all we have is the ability to take."
- A Different Christmas — "Our world has been profoundly affected, so it only follows that Christmas this year will be different."
- Give The Grinch A Break — "Watching Santa take a smoking break with his beard pulled down outside an entrance/exit at the mall isn't very good promotion of the true spirit of Christmas."
- I Love Christmas Time — "I love to see your eyes dance with joy as you get ready to "unwrap" this gift."
- A Gift For The Giver — "My excitement over such 'unique' ideas always leaves my husband somewhat bug-eyed!"
- Santa & the Big C — "I threw my arms around that dear old man and blessed him through my tears and told him he was an answer to prayer."
- Stripped Away Holiday — "I know it's superficial and artificial and a symbol of commercialism gone mad, but whoever said I have good taste?"
- Death Of Old Man Scrooge — "He saw Christmas as the perfect opportunity to express how grateful he was for friends and also to show his friends how much he cared for them."
- Angels Once In A While — "Yes, there were angels in Indiana that long-ago December. And they all hung out at the Big Wheel truck stop."
- Homemade Bread — "As the holidays drew close, Kathi and I discussed what we could do to make it seem kinda normal. We decided to make some homemade bread."
- Christmas To the Max — "Both of these precious people cling to life only because they cling to Christ and He lifts them up every day."
- The True Story Tiny Tim's First Christmas — "Naming him had been very difficult for some reason... they even threatened to put 'no name' on his birth certificate."
- Camaro Caroling — "We hadn't gone far when we saw what looked like an accident ahead. An old Camero was sprawled across half the highway..."
- It's Still Enough — "Since Christmas is a snapshot of who is, and who isn't in our lives each year, we often wonder if the magic of Christmas has been permanently marred by our losses."
- Glory Bower — "Greetings! You are highly blessed.
God is with you, be at rest."
- Get Them Presents — "If Christmas is Jesus' birthday, why does He get the short end of the Christmas stocking?"
- Stop & Listen — "Normally, I would be in a terror-driven frenzy by now."
- A Christmas Wish — "My brother is usually quite the card all year 'round but in the two months leading up to Christmas, he outdoes himself."
- Recipe For Christmas Dinner — "The gift can be anything but we have found that love, compassion and mercy not only makes a great gift."
- Busted By The Claus — "I tapped her on the shoulder, waited until she got the full Santa Claus image in her view, and said, 'Sorry, lady, but you're busted!' Yep, the police came down, cuffed her and hauled her off to jail!"
- Red Mitts And A Four-Year-Old Heart — "I do remember having a black and white TV and looking at the Ed Sullivan show with one eye, and the twinkle of the tree with the other..."
- Oh, Yeah, Joseph! — "'Mary, Mary, Mary, everything is always about Mary. Mary, God always liked you best!' If Joseph were the jealous type, he may have uttered a phrase or two similar to these."
- Christmas In Poland — "'Christmas in Poland' is a holiday picture to warm your heart this Christmas."
- Confessions of a Christmas Mom — "Well, it's the first week of December. Christmas LOOMS on the horizon. As usual, I feel totally unprepared."
- The Gift — "It all began because my husband Mike hated Christmas."
- T'was The Night — "T'was the night before Christmas and in Beth'lem town. All the inns were so crowded, Mary couldn't lie down."
- Pondering Christmas Night — "She lay in the straw of a stable... but that didn't matter. She was too busy pondering the miracle that lay, both in the manger a few feet away, and also in her heart!"
- Two Babes In A Manger — "Throughout the story, the children and orphanage staff sat in amazement as they listened."
- The Nativity Scene — "The lumber for the stable came from native Iowa trees processed at a lumber mill a hundred miles from where we lived."
- The Gift of Your Presence — "Jesus was one of the busiest men to walk the face of the earth. If ever there was a driven man, here was the mileage King!"
- Christmas Wish — "This mystery should be incredible enough to make us worship and celebrate the occasion of His arrival, but the compelling uniqueness of Christmas doesn't stop there."
- Mary's Lamb — "Mary had the little Lamb, who lived before His birth."
- Confessions of a Christian Grinch — "I had become one of God's Seasonal Purity Police with all of the trimmings."
- The Net Night Before Christmas — "The e-mails were stacked by the modem with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there."
- That Big Fat Guy — "My problems with Christmas began in 1963. We had a two year old boy and a two month old girl. We moved to the Texas Panhandle to a small town."
- One Christmas Above the Rest — "I was a scoffing skeptic and I had steered clear of all things religious."
- Do We Need Santa? — "One year I remember my father (who was the Chief of Police) jokingly threatened to have one of his men shoot down Santa if I didn't eat..."
- The Collector's Son — "Together they traveled around the world, adding only the finest art treasures to their collection."
- Help for the Holidays! — "We somehow expect that when the holiday season comes, all of these traumatic things will fade away. Why doesn't God hold them back?"
- This Family Tree Needs Pruning! — "How many of you, when you are reading the Bible, skip the 'begets?' Come on, 'fess up'!"
- Jesus and the Elves — "'There's a problem with the angel,' said a Pharisee who happened to be strolling by."
- T'was the Night Before — "Twas the night before Jesus came and all through the house not a creature was praying, not one in the house."
- Martha Stewart's Christmas Greeting — "Since it snowed last night, I got up early and made a sled with old barn wood and a glue gun..."
- Martha Stewart's Christmas Calendar — "Blanch carcass from Thanksgiving turkey..."
- Wise Men Still Seek Him — "Would you consider yourself wise?"
- A Christmas Story — "Bobby had been in his backyard for about an hour already. And, try as he might, he could not come up with an idea for his mother's Christmas gift."
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