Here's a nice piece that you could use as a newsletter article or even a sermon starter.

December 2000 Article for the Voice of Inspiration
by Karen C.L. Brook, Ph.D.
CnslrKCLB@AOL.COM

Title: We Need A Lot of Christmas!

When you think about Christmas being just a few weeks away, 
what is your very first reaction? Be honest -- does your 
face light up with a smile of happy anticipation, or do 
you become anxious about how you'll get "everything" done? 
If your reaction is the latter, take a deep breath, 
loosen those tight shoulders and read on.

We really are a weary land, and to quote a lyric from the 
musical "Auntie Mame", "We need a little Christmas!" Actually, 
we need a LOT of Christmas, not Madison Avenue style but Jesus' style. 

Typically the holidays bring out tensions between couples 
and in families and loneliness for those who have few 
people in their lives. Why are we weary and tense? One big 
reason is because it's not "new" anymore. Nothing is ---
relationships, situations, and Christmas itself. And in 
reality whatever life situations may be "new" may be even 
harder to deal with than what things were like before. Oh 
but there is hope, my friends. Please take heart and read on. 

Let's take a look at Christmas from a whole different 
angle. Think about the scene at the nativity of Jesus. As 
you look around in your mind's eye, you see Mary and Joseph 
gathered next to Jesus in the manger, surrounded with cows 
and other farm animals. I actually like to think there's a 
cat in there too, snuggling in the straw. whoever heard of 
a barn without cats? Back to the cast of characters. Shepherds 
and their sheep and a brilliant star blazing in a sky filled 
with angels and their songs of glory and reassurance make 
up a picture of complete amazement. Here we all are in the 
background, looking in on the scene. 

Now --- here comes the different angle. Try to picture 
all this through the eyes of the baby in the manger. These 
are new eyes to whom everything is fresh and marvelous. Can 
you imagine how absolutely amazing the stars would be in the 
dark night sky? Think about it for awhile. This is what God 
wants to share with us: this joyful amazing love in a way 
we've not experienced before or perhaps not in a long while, 
all brought to us through the promise in a baby's eyes. 

Staying with the view from Jesus' eyes, now look at your 
spouse and family members as He sees them. Look beyond the
inadequacies, faults and imperfections you see to the 
possibilities and promise Jesus sees. This is the stuff of 
faith and hope and the interior healing freedom of new 
perspectives. Pray for help to keep seeing people as God 
sees them. 

Here is a way to put this into practice in your family and 
renew for yourselves the joy of Christmas. Have everyone 
in your family make/decorate a box for themselves. If you 
have people who are dubious about participating for one 
reason or another, you can label a box for each of them 
yourself. Shoe boxes are good for this purpose. Seal each 
box except for an opening you make in the top which is 
large enough to slip pieces of paper into, but not large 
enough for inquiring hands to dip into. Give everyone 
enough paper so that they can write one nice thing about 
or to each person in the family every day and have them 
put their daily writings into each person's box. These 
should be genuine gifts of words that do not carry with 
them double meanings i.e. "You are so talented with math 
that I know you could help your sister with her homework." 
Do you get the idea? If there are four people in the family 
(adults and children in the household), every day each 
person would write word gifts to the other three people 
in the family and place them into each person's box . 
Do this every day and open your boxes 
on Christmas. 

While you're thinking about this and other ideas to renew 
Christmas as well as your relationships, also consider 
paring down on the preparations which make you anxious to 
think about. If some of these are absolutely necessary, 
consider ways of delegating responsibilities to others so 
you don't bear the burden of a Christmas "production". 
If you haven't told people in your family that you love 
them, take the opportunity that each day brings to tell 
them. 

John Bryant, founder and CEO of Operation Hope, Inc. states: 
"The purpose of mankind is to become transparent to God's will, 
and to do that you need to get out of your own way... we 
become so busy that we don't set aside the time. To me, the 
wonder of the holidays is that all the world stops, if only 
for a moment, to reflect on something that's bigger than 
any one person...It's kind of like God's saying, 'I gotcha!' "

All of these things are the vital material of which faith 
is made. And faith is the candle which fuels the flame of 
hope. Here is a prayer from a writer friend, Bass Mitchell: 
"Loving God, Guiding Light, kindle our desire for Your 
holy presence and give us enough silence to hear the voice 
in the desert saying, 'Prepare the way of the Lord' ". Amen