The official Christmas season is now kicked off with Black Friday. Black Friday is the Friday after Thanksgiving and it is the day that retailers hope to go into the black financially. They hope we will all start buying gifts to give to our friends and family for Christmas.

Today you can go to the internet and find the items that you want but when I was a boy we had to go to the Sears and Roebucks catalog. It was called a wish book. Mom and Dad would allow us to pick out a gift from the catalog that we would like to have for Christmas.

It was thrilling to go through that catalog time and again until we had made our choice. We didn’t think about giving a gift, we were absorbed with receiving one. We would be so excited that on Christmas Eve we could hardly sleep because of the expectation of that gift we had chosen. On Christmas morning I felt like the most fortunate kid in the world when I saw that gift under the tree. Things are different today. Now, as a father and grandfather, I find that I enjoy giving gifts as much or more than receiving them.

The grandchildren, are however exactly as I was at their age. It is all about receiving. The difference is that they receive so many gifts that they hardly have time to look at one for unwrapping the next one. I guess that giving becomes more important as we grow up and have children.

I have always heard that we are more blessed in giving than receiving. It is easy to give a toy to the grandchildren because I love them deeply. But I wonder how I would feel if they rejected the present that I was giving them? How much worse would I feel if I was giving them the best I had and they refused to accept it? Do we really know what giving gifts at Christmas is all about?

These and other life questions will be addressed Sunday morning as “The Gathering Place Family” meets at 240 Courthouse Parkway in Washington C.H. for Life Groups at 9:30 and in the lobby at 10 a.m. for our Pre-Service Connection where we enjoy coffee, juice and donuts. Our Worship Service and Children’s Church then begins at 10:30. Come at 7 p.m. and be part of our Wednesday night Bible Study and Children’s Ministry.