How to Respond When Someone Says They Don’t Celebrate Christmas

[pinit]Merry Christmas Favored Friends! Is everyone enjoying this wonderful season so far? Hopefully you are taking some time to really soak in the  sights and sounds and sense the peaceful calm of it all. 🙂 Maybe there is something special that really puts you in the Christmas spirit?

Listening to Christmas music, baking with the kids.. If so, I definitely encourage you to prioritize that and not let time slip by. One thing that totally puts me in the Christmas spirit is listening to Nat King Cole’s holiday music.  I don’t know what it is about him… but something about his Christmas music makes my heart sing!

Ah.. I’m feeling nostalgic just thinking about it. Alas, I’ll move on to the moral of the post.. 😉 Have you ever come across a professed Christian who doesn’t “celebrate Christmas”? I have met a few, all having slightly different reasons.. “It has pagan roots, etc. blah, blah”.

Well it wasn’t until today that I actually had an opportunity to respond to someone about this, and amazingly enough.. they totally changed their mind!! I was shocked, but honestly felt the words I spoke were divinely inspired.  So, I thought.. hey, why not share them with you in case you find yourself in a similar position. 😉 Not, to mention there is a slight learning lesson in this story also..

Here goes! Basically, I sent a family member a Christmas gift. When I told them I had done this, their response was .. “You know I don’t celebrate Christmas. Right?”

Well, yes I had heard them speak this before, but never acknowledged it. This person went on to explain “why” they didn’t celebrate.  Honestly it all seemed kind of bogus to me, but I didn’t want to be confrontational.  And, when I prayed about how to respond, I knew deep down inside, the reason this person decided not to celebrate Christmas actually had nothing to do with any sort of religious beliefs.  It had to do with the fact that they have been by themselves for several years, with no family around. Therefore, Christmas to them no longer represented happy times, but probably lonely, sad times.

Knowing this to be true, I decided to do my best to drop the topic, so as not to put this person in an even more defensive position.  However, they persisted the next day in bringing the topic back up.

So, my response was the below:

“I agree Christmas has become extremely commercialized for some people.. however, as far as I know it is the ONLY day of the year that we celebrate Jesus’ birth.. so I’m pretty sure God is in favor of that. Not to mention, I’m sure He finds great pleasure in seeing his children have generous spirits in giving gifts to one another”..

Nothing too profound, but I felt it got the point across and addressed the initial reasoning they gave me.

Would you know, that in minutes this person was going out to Hobby Lobby to pick out some Christmas decorations!! And, by the end of the day, I had a picture text of their display, along with the gift I sent and a big Thank you!!

So, what can we learn from this story?

It is very common for people to make decisions based on emotion and then try to back them up with logic. And, that was definitely what happened it this case.

So, my encouragement is to “listen beyond the words that someone is speaking”. It is especially good to remember this, if you are in any sort of business and a person gives you an objection of any sorts. Oftentimes, you can get them to come around, if you get to the heart of the matter (real reason) and address that.

But, I must warn you.. this takes patience.  And, sometimes you will need to step back, pray and then wait to respond. (Not always the easiest thing to do for my personality type)

In wrapping up, I would love to hear from you. 🙂 Have you ever been in a similar situation and if so, how did you respond?

Till next time!!

~Here is a list of blogs where I “Link Up” .. Be sure to stop by and make some new friends!~