Holidays and Comercialism . . .
Do you feel bambarded with your retail stores approach? A couple of days before Christmas we ran up to Big Lots for a last minute gift for my mother and they already had the Valentines Day merchandise out!
Now don't get me wrong I love Valentines (read my post here) but really before Christmas!
Reminds me of trying to decorate my mantel for Fall. I went to the same store to get some simple cheap, inexpensive, frugally priced leaves to scater on the mantel. And guess what?
There was nothing in that store for less than $10.00. So my mantel did not get any leaves during the fall.
But quess what! Frugal shopper that I am on the two days before Christmas trip guess what I found! One lone garland of lovely little leaves. There was no price. The checker charged me a whole .25 can you say thrifty!
I guess your wondering where this post is going? How is this a Wordfilled Wednesday post? Read on . . . Here it is!
The thing is the stores want us to celebrate holidays on their time table. That's what gets me. I remember a few years ago our daughter was hosting the Thanksgiving meal. A day or so before we were in Walmart and she was trying to get some Fall decorations. (
guess she should have waited till 2 days before Christmas)
None. Zip nothing. She was so disappointed.
That's where my thought process of conforming to the world comes in. The world tends to lure us into going along with it's time table. With it's attitude and misconception most times about the entire theme of said holiday.
That's where we as Christians followers of Christ must look at the whole picture and figure
out how and if we want to participate!
We have the priviledge of deciding if we want to allow the world to creap into our homes.
Or do we want to live in our litle cacoon of churchiness. This is the part of the post you might decide to tune me out. Turn me off. But, give me a chance. Let me finish my train of thought here.
Yes I said churciness. You know me I am a wordy girl. And I was all geered up to write a couple of paragraphs. But the thought went through my mind that someone else wrote about a similar topic. And said it something like this. He was talking about whether Christians should be on Facebook. Here's part of what he said . . .
"Instead of shutting ourselves off from it, we should use it to shine our light! We can make a difference for the Kingdom of God just by our Facebook posts! In the old days you would have to jump on a horse and ride for days just to have an opportunity to witness to someone about Jesus! Now we can send a message around the world instantly from our cell phone to Facebook! Crazy! We got it made!!! And to think we wouldn't use that to our advantage... Now that really IS crazy!" B-Shoc click here to read the post.
I think that since the Bible tells us that we are to share the Gospel what better way than meet some people where they are? As B-Shoc said Be a light.
If that means participating in some way in Holidays that are maybe questionable to us then maybe we step back. Look at the big picture and figure out a way to use it to our advantage.
Sisters (and grandmothers) if you have young children you may have no idea how truly Blessed you are to be raising them right now. Do you realize all the resources that are at your disposal? I know you do! Like me you are a Pinterest addict. (Now no fibbing I know you look at all those decorating photos!) Do you know how many cool ideas for parties and ideas for childrens games and activities can be found on Pinterest.
And if you google images for a theme or a Bible verse you'll get alot more wonderful ideas.
The illustration I used yesterday I found just by googling John 3:16. Click here to check it out. And, I was glad to find a new amazing blogger friend.
So ladies I am continueing with my Valentines Day theme. I know your busy. I remember those days. I remember all the plans and the desires to make holidays special and perfect for my children and The Cowboy. And, I remember coming up short sometimes; well alot of the time. At least in my eyes.
So to help you out I am going to make it a little more simple for you. Over the next few days I am going to be sharing some tips, tutorials and resources for Valentines Day.
Can I help you celebrate? And just maybe Be a Light?
On a Blessed Journey . . .
Sherry
Linking with Jacquline at ...
Click Here.
Linking with Judith at . . .
Click Here.
Linking with . . .
at Simply Helping Him. Click Here.
Thanks so much for inviting me over! I am loving your blog. I am a new follower!
ReplyDeleteJill
Amen, totally agree.
ReplyDeleteI get so tired of commercialism of holidays!!Thanks for linking up over at WholeHearted Home this week.
ReplyDelete