There has been a lot of posting about Christmas, those for celebrating it and those against it. I know as our world gets more secular and our nations more multinational that there will be tension when a holiday, precious to one part of the nation, is not celebrated by another.

We have a good example of that in Australia with Australia Day (26th January) which celebrates to a lot of folk what it means to be a true Australian. It commemorates the day Captain Cook landed on the shores of Botany Bay at Kurnel. The beginning of the history of Australia as a British colony, as a mostly British/European dominated nation.

To the Australians here at that time, those of Aboriginal descent, this is a Day of Mourning. After all would you celebrate the day invaders came and started to take over your country? Yes? I don't think so. I know reading Australian history we would never see it like that, but read local history, journals, letters, court cases and it is an entirely dfferent story.

So why am I thinking of this now? Well, I just went to my litte church, with it's little "for sale" sign on its boundary and set up the Christmas tree for the Family Service on Sunday. Christmas trees came to England through the efforts of Queen Victoria who adopted her German husband's tradition of decorating a pine tree at Yuletide. I am not sure why this then became popular throughout the British Isles and then in all the countries that those people went to but look anywhere in the world and unless it is really remote it will feature a Christmas tree somewhere in the festivities.

Look at Japan, not a Christian country by any means but just mad about "Christmas" the festivities, the decorations, the present giving. What they make of the religious connotations of it all I don't know. But "Christmas" in some form or other is celebrated everywhere. Not necessarily as "The birth of Christ" but more often as a family celebratioon.

My Scripture kids have been making cards, bookmarks, posters all kinds of things to take home for Mum/Dad/ primary caregiver to remind them about the approach of Christmas. Not that they can miss it with the shopping centres piled with Christmas goodies. But the children have enjoyed just putting their efforts into these special hand-made expressions of their love in a way that is unique to them. If you want to see a world of wonder and delight see it through the eyes of a child.

That is what God did, that is why Christmas is special to me.