Confronting the Christmas Crazies: Practical Tips on Navigating the Holidays

It didn’t take long, did it?

By early to mid October, one is hard-pressed to find a major retailer anywhere that hasn’t already begun Christmas sales. Deck the halls with boughs of low-low prices!
It happens every year, and really should come as no surprise by now.

But here’s the thing.
Gone unexamined, many will be lured into the madness of Christmas marketing.
Mainly, because conventional consumer-wisdom demands it. We don’t want to go overboard with spending, so we feel the tug to hit the stores hard and heavy (and early), to get the best deals possible.

All the while, our Christmas consciousness is quietly, subtly, sleigh-jacked.

Instead of the liberating and life-giving Advent of something glorious and new being born into this chaos, we unwittingly endorse, embrace, and empower the very stress that robs us of true peace, and can sometimes make for a pretty joyless Christmas.

But what if it didn’t have to be that way?
What if there was a way to deliberately confront and combat the Christmas crazies?

There is.

With a little focus and faith, there is a way to swim upstream.
We absolutely can embrace the holiday season in a way that is meaningful and rich.

So, let’s talk about it.

Beginning in November, I will be leading a 3 part study on Wednesday nights entitled, “Confronting the Christmas Crazies: Practical tips on Navigating the Holidays.” This study is for anyone who experiences tension and stress for any reason during the holidays.

Perhaps it’s not the unbridled consumerism that stresses you out, and puts a cloud over the holidays. For you, it maybe family-oriented drama; or the painful absence of family that makes you want to simply crawl in a hole, beginning somewhere around Thanksgiving.

Whatever the case may be, this study will aim to empower you to engage the holidays with renewed joy.

Sessions will be Wednesday, November 4^th, 11^th, and 18^th at 6:00 p.m. in the Heritage Room.

Shaun King
Senior Pastor
Johns Creek Baptist Church