The Reason for the Season
As a little kid, my parents had an unbreakable Christmas tradition.
Actually, the tradition has held up long into my adult years, but it held the greatest significance and largest impact on me during my younger years.
My brother and I were notorious for waking up at the crack of dawn on Christmas morning, jumping into our parent’s bed, and begging them to get up. After an hour of waking up from their sleep fog, the two would pad into the kitchen where we would rip open our stockings and distribute the various gifts to the respective people present.
But we still wouldn’t open the gifts.
We had one thing left to do.
We had to read the Christmas story, straight from the gospel of Luke.
As a little kid, with all those presents sitting around me, it was brutal.
But as an adult, I realize why my parents made us do that.
Christmas isn’t about us, or the presents around us, or the stocking stuffers, but about the best gift we had already been given: the gift of Jesus Christ.
There is another family tradition we have upheld since the first time it graced our tree.
Given to us as a gift was a heavy ornament in a beautiful, long box. Upon opening it, the box revealed a long, sturdy nail with a red ribbon on the top.
It was the “Christmas Nail.”
The inscription on the inside of the box reads:
It is to be hung on a sturdy branch, a branch that will hold such a spike without being noticed by well-wishers dropping by to admire one’s tinseled tree. The nail is known only to the home that hangs it. Understood only by the heart that knows its significance.
It is hung with the thought: the Christmas tree but foreshadows the Christ-tree which only He could decorate for us, ornamented with nails as this.
The Christmas Nail is always the very first ornament we place on the tree, deep in the branches near the trunk of the tree. One can hardly see it with all the other colorful and festive ornaments covering the tree, but we know it’s there.
Now, reading the Christmas story is one of my favorite parts of Christmas morning.
It is a gentle reminder of the reason for the season, the best gift we could have ever been given, a gift for all people, a gift of good news and great joy.
The long-awaited king had come.
And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.”
— Luke 2:8-11
