Christmas???

My older brother John Mark was always a Scrooge around Christmas time. I am starting to understand why. Let me start off with the beginning of my own Scrooge feels this year.
Thanksgiving morning I volunteered to watch Thad why Jeremy and Sara got ready for Thanksgiving at the Boucher's and so I turned on the TV to watch the Thanksgiving parade. Do you want to know how many Pilgrims or turkeys I saw in the parade? None! It was all about Christmas, if I had not know what day it was and you showed me the parade I would have thought it was the Christmas parade. So I complained about this to my mother and she said that the Thanksgiving parade is all about bring santa to town. Is that really what Thanksgiving has become for us, a chance to bring a fictional person to town? This was only the beginning. This past weekend I went to the store to look for a babies first Christmas ornament for Thad because mom could not find one in Stephenville. They have no Christmas ornaments that are family related what so ever. The ornaments are all about santa clause, elves, reindeer, and snowmen. What happened to Christmas?? When did it become all about presents and a fictional character who gives us anything that we want as long as we are good? When did we lose sight of what Christmas really is? That Christmas is a chance to give to others, and to tell them about the most wonderful gift ever. It is a time for us to spend with family and friends. When did we forget that Christmas is not just a season at the end of the year but is something that we should celebrate daily, the birth of our King!! But instead we choose to worship the idol known as santa and what he can do for us.
So I have come to realize that as a Christian in this society it is easy to have some Scrooge feelings toward Christmas, but that I should not lose sight of what Christmas is because of what people have made Christmas into. So I want to challenge us this Christmas to look for was to give instead of worrying about what we are going to receive.
(I know Christmas is still a couple of weeks away but I needed to get this off my chest.)
Oh and by the way I do know that santa clause is suppose to be capitalized.