Commentary by Ward Degler
Our Christmas tree is up and glowing in our living room. And I had nothing to do with it. It was our son, his wife and their kids.
The tree is artificial, housed in a large box and stored on the back porch.
We bought a live tree for years, but this one came to us a few years ago from our daughter, when she and her family bought a larger one.
The tree is pretty cool. It breaks down into three pieces, which when put together and plugged in, lights up with either multi-colored or white lights.
For the first couple of years, I put it together by myself. Not anymore.
We didn’t ask for help this year. It just showed up after a simple phone call from our son asking when we would like them to come and put up our tree.
While the kids moved furniture and assembled the tree, my wife retrieved other Christmas decorations from storage and placed them strategically in our living room. Brightly colored pillows, Santas, Father Christmas, a nutcracker and a proud reindeer, converted our home into a living Christmas card.
When the tree was up, the troops moved outdoors, placing decorations on a small fir tree in our front yard. And then, for good measure, they filled the bird feeder.
As our world becomes increasingly secular, we struggle to remember the true purpose of Christmas: To celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Son of God.
It is the season of giving, after all, and Christ himself admonished us to do for others.
