Celebrating Christmas

We spend the whole month of December celebrating Christmas.  We do some serious and some fun.

Last Sunday night Ramon and I taught about the first Christmas.  Ramon took the lead sharing some of the prophecies and events leading up to Christ's birth.  I followed with Christ's birth and how it fulfilled prophecy and dispelled a few myths (that most of us picked up in church along the way) about Christmas.

One of the interesting thoughts that hit me as I studied last week was the fact that there was no place for home or room for Joseph and Mary.  One would think that since Bethlehem was Joseph's family's home that there would have been some relative close or distant that they could have stayed with.  Maybe the place was just slam packed.  Maybe, could it be, that there was no room because here they were an engaged couple and she was pregnant?  Maybe their family and the community looked down on them for the situation they found themselves in.

This Sunday we party, we celebrate Christ's birth.  We spend some time talking about the gift of Jesus Christ.  We then play a great game of sneaky Santa.  Then we eat some fabulous party food that the students bring.

The Sunday before Christmas many of our students go traveling to visit family.  We use this Sunday when numbers will be down to get way from the usual and we go bowling, our annual Christmas Bowl.  We have been doing this for years.  We usually have a great turn out and it's an awesome opportunity for our students to bring their unchurched friends and for our team to hang out with the students.  This year we are encouraging tacky Christmas sweater to be worn to the bowling event.