What does Christmas mean to us? Is it full of the freshness, thoughtfulness, and joy of a glorious season? Or has it lost its beauty, shining wonder, and its sublimity? Has the sense of commercialism and concern over persons and things dimmed the Christ in Christmas? If so, it is time that we exchanged the baubles and tinsel of material sense for the clear, shining awareness of Christ, Truth.
Mrs. Eddy explains the true sense of giving when she tells us, "Wholly apart from this mortal dream, this illusion and delusion of sense, Christian Science comes to reveal man as God's image, His idea, coexistent with Him—God giving all and man having all that God gives."The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 5; God bestows all good freely and is constantly imparting to man the loveliness of Love, the immortal perfection of Truth, and the freedom of Soul. God gives without measure the eternal harmony of Life, the indestructible substance of Spirit, the law and order of Principle, and the perfect action of Mind. In this giving there is no lack or limitation, no apathy or tension, no anxiety or misguidance. It is effortless imparting, divinely natural, and reveals the joy of true being, the ever-presence of the Christ, Truth.
One year, a week or so before Christmas, a woman became acutely aware of the concentration of her thought on material gift giving and its attendant beliefs of pressure and frustration. The occupation of thought with material gifts seemed to shut out the true sense of Christmas and the ever-presence of the Christ. She earnestly prayed for a higher sense of giving. Two lines of a hymn came to her,
