WE'VE BEEN ROBBED!!!

If your house had broken into you'd call the police.

Who do you call when a whole HOLIDAY is stolen from you!?!?!

I KNOW you know what I am talking about.

Somehow we went right from Halloween to Christmas, skipping Thanksgiving altogether.

I blame the retail outlets, advertisers and radio stations...and US..for letting them do this to us.

The day before Halloween the stores began to move what was left of the Halloween merchandise on the clearance shelves and the Christmas merchandise was set out front and center. Even before that the Christmas stuff was out....it was just a few aisles over. Not quite the focus of attention....but it WAS there...in the ready...playing Jedi Mind tricks on us. "This is NOT the Holiday you want."

Now...don't get me wrong. Those of you who know me well KNOW that I love Christmas. From the cookies, to the gifts, to the gatherings, to the decorations. ALL of the decorations. Our living room usually looks like Santa threw up in it. All of our OTHER home decorations are removed and they are ALL replaced by our various collections. We even have a "nutcracker" clock that plays music EVERY hour on the hour.

I LOVE Thanksgiving too though. I love the colors, what it represents and the fact that it makes us stop and be thankful before the insanity of the Christmas season begins.

BUT WE HAVE BEEN ROBBED!! The commercials for Christmas sales and shopping began several weeks ago as did the Christmas songs on the radio. I was listening to the local "oldies" show a couple of weeks ago and one of the DJs was reading the hate mail he had received for playing Christmas music the morning before.

And this year "Black Friday" has bled over into Thanksgiving day itself. I just finished reading a news article that said MANY stores were opened THANKSGIVING morning at 4 am. One lady said she put her turkey in the oven and left her daughter to watch it.

We live across the freeway from the outlet mall. This year the owners of this and 21 other outlet malls opened at midnight on Thanksgiving night. The local coffee shop which our friend Kimmie manages and where Kirsten works was there selling coffee and Jeff and I thought we would go over just to say "Hi" and support the baristas as they stood around in the cold.

Now, when I say we live right across the freeway I mean it. As we drive out of our neighborhood we can see the roof of the mall. We can see the top of their 77 ft Christmas tree! It takes us about three minutes to get there if the five lights between us and the mall are green. But last night...we couldn't even get out of our neighborhood much less make it across the freeway.

Why you ask?...because as FAR AS WE COULD SEE there were headlights. Just a few hours after our last piece of Thanksgiving pie it had started.

For miles to the north on I-25...for miles to the south...up Founders PKWY which runs in front our neighborhood and at both exits....there was total and complete gridlock. We managed to make it ACROSS Founders but dared NOT turn into the traffic going to the mall lest we become mired in first waves of the commercial insanity of the season.

We drove around to a point in the bank parking lot..... and just sat and stared at the hundreds of cars trying to get into the mall.

And I became very, very sad.

I don't know if there is anything we can do to stop the retail juggernaut which threatens to destroy the JOY of the holiday season ON THE WHOLE.....but we HAVE to be able to stop it's effects on OUR FAMILIES!

I'm not sure how we are going to do it yet...but I PRAY that over the next couple years I,my family and YOU are OVERWHELMED by the true meaning of the season and we are granted Divine inspiration as to how to do this.

Maybe that's the key. To treat the season as a prayer. We are taught as believers to Begin prayer with Thanksgiving, that the middle should be filled with OUTWARDLY focused intercession...and we are to finish our prayers by calling upon the name of Jesus. What better way to finish our year than by LIVING the last couple of months...when all of the rest of the world is going CRAZY....as a prayer.