I haven’t forgotten to tell stories about Thanksgiving, I’m just making a brief detour to the topic of Christmas.  Part of the weekend conversation did revolve around Christmas shopping and getting ready for the season.  Black Friday happened.  I thankfully went to the mountains instead of the mall.  Whew, another shopping stampede avoided.

Do you remember Amy Grant’s Christmas albums from back in the day?  Man, I loved that music.  Home for Christmas was one of my first CD’s circa 1995.

One of the songs on that album was titled “Grown-up Christmas List.”  In that song, Amy wishes for all sorts of good things–justice, peace, etc.  But you can’t exactly wrap those up and put them under a tree for your loved ones, now can you?

My desire to buy tangible gifts for the people I care about doesn’t have anything to do with Christmas as it should be.  That’s true.  It’s like giving presents to everybody except the person whose birthday you’re celebrating.  But still, I can’t make myself stop.

So if you haven’t guessed, my grown-up Christmas list doesn’t include world peace.  My list is, however, in existence as of today.  For that, I’m grateful.  Even if the concept of major Christmas shopping isn’t theologically sound, I stand by the list.  It includes the names of people I love, and it shows me small ways that I can express that to them.  What’s not to like about that?

That’s all.  I made a Christmas list, and I’m happy about it.