Nativity

Every December, churches across the United States prepare for an influx of visitors, but fewer Americans than ever are including church in this year’s Christmas plans. According to a Lifeway Research study, only 47% of U.S. adults say they typically attend church during the holiday season, while 48% admit it’s not on their agenda, and 5% remain undecided. While 9 in 10 Americans do something to celebrate Christmas, less than half typically attend church at Christmastime today.

The study reveals a sharp divide in Christmas church attendance, particularly among the religiously unaffiliated—a group growing fastest among younger demographics. While 71% of this group say they’re unlikely to attend church at Christmas, 40% admit they might consider it if personally invited by someone they trust.

Among those who do attend, the motivations are surprisingly diverse. Sixty percent of Christmas churchgoers say their attendance stems from faith, but others are only doing it to keep up with tradition (16%), appease family and friends (15%), or simply embrace the festive ambiance (8%).

As churches prepare for Christmas Eve services — often the highest-attended service of the year — the message is clear: intentional outreach matters.

This holiday season, take a moment to ask yourself, “Does this person really want what I’m buying them?” A new survey finds the answer is likely no! Researchers have found that more than half of Americans (53%) will receive a gift they don’t want.

It turns out that everyday Americans are throwing away tons of money. According to a survey, unwanted presents will reach an all-time high in both volume and cost this year, with an estimated $10.1 billion being spent on gifts headed for the regifting pile.

Overall, the annual holiday spending forecast finds that roughly 140 million Americans will receive at least one unwanted present. Shockingly, one in 20 people expect to receive at least five gifts they won’t want to keep. The average cost of these unwanted items is expected to rise to $72 this holiday season, up from $66 last year. That represents a billion-dollar surge in wasteful holiday spending.

Saying “you shouldn’t have…” might be a more truthful statement than ever when it comes to certain gift ideas. Topping the unwanted gift list are:

Clothing and accessories (43%)
Household items (33%)
Cosmetics and fragrances (26%)
Technology gifts (25%)

So, what happens to all these well-intentioned but unwanted presents?

Regifting is the most popular solution (39%)
Return the item to the store to exchange for something else (32%)
Sell the unwanted gift (27%)

So, if you’re still looking for last-minute gifts this holiday season, choose wisely. There’s a very good chance the person you’re buying for won’t like your choices anyway.

Possible Preaching Angle:
You can use this story to remind people that the only gift that is universally appropriate in the gift of God’s Son. But in the same way, many people reject this costly gift as unnecessary and unwanted (John 1:11-12).

Author Philip Yancey writes:

Where I live in the Rocky Mountains, you can see several thousand stars with the naked eye on a clear night. All of them belong to the Milky Way galaxy, which contains more than 100 billion stars, including an average-sized one that our planet Earth orbits around—the Sun.

Our galaxy has plenty of room: 26 trillion miles separate the Sun from the star nearest to it. And traveling at the speed of light, it would take you 25,000 years to reach the center of the Milky Way from our home planet, which lies out in the galaxy’s margins.

Until a century ago, astronomers believed the universe consisted of our galaxy alone. Then, in the 1920’s, Edwin Hubble proved that one apparent cloud of dust and gas in the night sky, named Andromeda, was actually a separate galaxy. Now there were two. When NASA launched a large telescope into space for a clearer view, they appropriately named it after Hubble.

In 1995, a scientist proposed pointing the Hubble Space Telescope at one dark spot, the size of a grain of sand, to see what lay beyond the darkness. For ten days, the telescope orbited Earth and took long-exposure images of that spot. The result, which has been called “the most important image ever taken,” would astonish everyone. It turns out that tiny spot alone contained almost 3,000 galaxies!

Scientists now believe that if you had unlimited vision, you could hold a sewing needle at arm’s length toward the night sky and see 10,000 galaxies in the eye of the needle. Move it an inch to the left and you’d find 10,000 more. Same to the right, or no matter where else you moved it. There are approximately a trillion galaxies out there, each encompassing an average of 100 to 200 billion stars.

Possible Preaching Angle:

How should we adapt to this humbling new reality? Back when people assumed the universe comprised a few thousand stars, a psalmist marveled in prayer, “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?” (Ps. 8:3–4).

The answer, of course, is found in the New Testament revelation that God loves the world so deeply (John 3:16) that he sent his Son in the form of a servant (Phil. 2:6-7) to die for humanity. In an act of humility beyond comprehension, the God of a trillion galaxies chose to “con-descend”—to descend to be with—the benighted humans on this one rebellious planet, out of billions in the universe.

Carrie McKean writes in an article on Christianity Today online:

When I think about the night of Jesus’ birth, the first picture that comes to mind is straight from my childhood. It’s like I’m peering into a snow globe manger scene. Snow falls softly, blanketing the hillside in a carpet of quiet. All is calm. All is bright. Give it a good shake, the snow gently swirls, then settles over the pristine couple and silent baby once again.

But that image is quickly crowded by another. 15 years ago, my husband and I lived in a dusty Chinese village on the outskirts of Beijing. We volunteered for four years at New Day Foster Home, a private, Christian nonprofit organization. In those days…they helped fund surgeries and provided long-term foster care for medically fragile orphans. We lived in an apartment complex about a mile from the organization’s campus, and most mornings we walked behind a flock of sheep and their shepherd on our way to work.

You could smell that shepherd’s stable before you saw it. Fetid and filthy, the sheep crowded in at the end of a day. In the summer, flies buzzed. In the winter, sludge froze solid. I would pass the sheep and their shepherd, pitying him a little. Around Christmas, I pictured my Savior born amid fresh, sweet hay in an inexplicably warm and comforting stable. The snow globe in my mind was just how I wanted to imagine Jesus’ entrance into the world. But the stable I walked past told the truth: Stables smell like dirty sheep.

I wanted to throw a snow globe against a brick wall. That clean Nativity was plastic, fraudulent, and fake. I felt angry at myself for all the ways I’d cheapened and tamed the gospel. My own faith felt fake and plastic too.

The world I saw outside my window needed a God-become-flesh in circumstances far messier than those perfect little snow globes. And here was this shepherd and his sheep, upending my picture of the Incarnation and revealing that the lack was in my seeing, not in Christ’s coming.

There’s no way around the fact that incarnation means coming to a filthy and fetid world, just like that stable in China…. It’s a world with disease and mental illness. A fallen creation groans with earthquakes, floods, and fires. Sorrow, unending sorrow. It is all too dirty, and yet he came near.

Jesus is God-made-flesh who doesn’t ask us to clean up the mess before he comes. He enters into our messes, always, always with us. He put on human skin…willingly emptying himself (Phil. 2:5-8), becoming a shepherd for you and me, a bunch of dirty sheep (John 10:11). He didn’t leave us in our squalor but led us to green pastures—to healing, rescue, and restoration of our souls (Ps. 23). I love a God who sees dirty sheep and tends them himself.

For Mike Witmer, it began as a neighborly holiday game. Now it has become an enduring tribute. The Witmer’s Christmas lights were already up when Mike heard that his daughter’s friend from the swim team, Kevin, age 11, was coming home from the hospital, having been hospitalized with cancer. So, Mike decided to write “Get Well Kevin” in lights, and Mike’s wife told Kevin’s folks to swing through their court on their way home from the hospital.

Kevin loved the display, and he asked his mom, “Do you think Mr. Witmer will put my name in lights every year?” When Mike heard that his heart crushed and he thought, “Well, how can I not?” Kevin’s cancer went into remission, but every year Mike would hide the words “Hi” and “Kevin” in his display for Kevin to find it--like a Where’s Waldo? game between them.

Sadly, Kevin’s cancer returned, and he died at age 19. Mike spoke at Kevin’s funeral, telling the mourners he’d be making his “Hi Kevin” sign bigger that year, so Kevin would be able to see it from heaven. It has been on Mike’s garage roof every Christmas ever since.

“In the beginning,” Mike said, “my annual ‘Hi Kevin’ was just a silly gesture to a really nice kid who had been through some tough times. But it has been my honor to keep the salute going for his friends and family.”

Gift cards make great stocking stuffers—just as long as you don’t stuff them in a drawer and forget about them after the holidays. Americans are expected to spend nearly $30 billion on gift cards this holiday season, according to the National Retail Federation. Restaurant gift cards are the most popular, making up one-third of those sales.

Most of those gift cards will be redeemed. Paytronix, which tracks restaurant gift card sales, says around 70% of gift cards are used within six months. But many cards—tens of billions of dollars’ worth—wind up forgotten or otherwise unused. That’s when the life of a gift card gets more complicated, with expiration dates or inactivity fees that can vary by state.

After clothing, gift cards will be the most popular present this holiday season. Nearly half of Americans plan to give them, according to the National Retail Federation. But many will remain unspent.

Gift cards get lost or forgotten, or recipients hang on to them for a special occasion. In a July survey, Bankrate found that 47% of U.S. adults had at least one unspent gift card or voucher. The average value of unused gift cards is $187 per person, a total of $23 billion.

While it may take gift cards years to expire, experts say it’s still wise to spend them quickly. Some cards—especially generic cash cards from Visa or MasterCard—will start accruing inactivity fees if they’re not used for a year, which eats away at their value. Inflation also makes cards less valuable over time. And if a retail store closes or goes bankrupt, a gift card could be worthless.

Possible Preaching Angle:

In the same way, the gifts of God (his promises, salvation, spiritual gifts, talents, the Bible) often remain unused, unopened by faith, and neglected by so many people.

A pub has been reusing the same 77-year-old Christmas decorations in its public bar for more than 60 years. Landlord David Short, 84, first put up the crepe paper streamers and paper lanterns in the Queen's Head, Newton, Cambridgeshire, in 1962.

His son Rob Short, who took over the pub 10 years ago, said his father made the ribbons when he was about seven. He said, "It's amazing they survived as the pub has had some quite raucous evenings over the years. But the thing about them is you can mend them quite easily and put them back up again."

Short, 50, is the third generation of his family to run the Queen's Head. "At Christmas, we're known for our festivities and the decorations are a big part of that. I think people like them because they're traditional and I'm sure they wouldn't fit into a lot of places, but because the pub is very traditional, it fits into the whole ethos of the place."

Mr. Short's father puts the yellow, red and green ribbons up each year because he "is the only one to know how to put them up, it's a bit of a technique - I have been learning a little.” While it can take his regulars "a while to notice they're up, it's almost part of the pub," visitors do notice them because "you just don't get to see decorations like that anymore".

The streamers are carefully rolled up and stored away in a cupboard every year. Mr. Short said: "It's going back to the make-do-and-mend generation, I suppose, and that's what we should all be doing, reusing things - so it's quite relevant to these days as well."

You can see pictures of the decorations here.

Possible Preaching Angle:

1) Church - Leaders have discovered that their church congregations appreciate the “old” traditions of hymns, Nativity plays, candle ceremonies, the four-week observance of Advent, and others. 2) Family, Traditions - This is also true in the family home where celebrating Christmas with nostalgic tree ornaments, reading the Christmas story, and door-to-door caroling bring back warm family memories.

We used to have a short Halloween season, a nice slow-paced Thanksgiving, and then around mid-November we'd see Christmas stuff out for sale. Well, now these three events are getting mashed together in what one author calls a "HalloweenthanksgivingChristmaspalooza."

Ellyn von Huben notes, "I've noticed that so much of society's sense of holiday celebrations has been condensed that it is hard to even see what holiday we are headed toward."

Possible Preaching Angle:

This story (and her wonderful new word to describe this season) provides a great way to help your congregation slow down, take a deep breath, and focus on Christ and the true meaning of Advent, which Von Huben defines at "The time in which we prepare our hearts for the celebration of Our Lord made flesh to dwell among us."

In a recent segment on NPR’s Morning Edition, Rev. Cameron Partridge shared about an idea he developed during his years as a college chaplain. "You know, you've got the end of the semester. You've got finals. Preparation to leave for home. So, Advent barely got to be observed."

Traditionally, the season of Advent is observed in the Christian liturgical calendar during the four weeks preceding Christmas. But Partridge decided to start it a few weeks sooner, in order to draw attention to the necessary, urgent themes of the season. He says the shift gave students "an opportunity to actually really be present together and to observe it together, which could be grounding in a time of great intensity."

And this seems of upmost importance these days, especially given the current extended conflict in the Holy Land. "We can't pretend that everything is fine," he says. "There is tumult in the world, and it is real and it is hard and it is deeply affecting people."

The current move to begin marking the season earlier began in 2005, when the Rev. William Petersen got together a group of clergy, professors, and church musicians who formed something that came to be called the Advent Project.

Petersen believes that Advent for Christians is as much about hope for the Second Coming of Jesus—sometimes called the Second Advent—that will usher in the reign of God as much as it is about commemorating the first coming of God in the person of Jesus in first-century Palestine.

Petersen says that tension is where we all reside, which is why Advent is what we need. "In its dwelling in the already and the not-yet, Advent can ground and strengthen us in all of that uncertainty and help give us an ability to connect."

Possible Preaching Angle:

The good news is not just that God came to the earth as a baby, but that by doing so, he signaled hope for his Second Advent in which the heartache, injustice, and death of our fallen world will be overcome by goodness, truth, and life.

Not only are the images from the James Webb Space Telescope brilliant and beautiful, but they are also baffling. Approximately 40 pairs of a new classification of orb have been identified within pictures of the Orion Nebula.

Dubbed JuMBOs—Jupiter Mass Binary Objects—these objects defy our current, conventional understanding of how planets, stars, and gravitational orbits work. Unlike normal planets, the Jupiter-sized pairs don’t orbit a star. Astronomers don’t know why—or how—they function in this way. As The New York Times put it, they are “a complete mystery.”

These images and discoveries coming back from the far reaches of space put us in our place. They bring to the forefront how expansive the universe is, how small we are, how much we don’t know, and how much there is yet to discover. When we consider the heavens—the star clusters, nebulae, black holes, and now JuMBOs—who are we? What is humankind that God is mindful of us and cares for us, as Psalm 8:3–4 says?

In “God’s Promises Are Clearest When We Turn Out the Lights,” Cort Gatliff reflects that “the stars provide perspective. They humble us by highlighting our finitude. Yet they also lift up our heads by reminding us of our infinite worth in the eyes of the Creator.” And while stunning images from space let us glimpse celestial realities we’d never be able to see with the naked eye, simple nighttime starscapes also invite us into awe and wonder.

During Advent, we often read this prophecy from Isaiah: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned” (9:2). In a spiritual and emotional sense, the recent heaviness of war, natural disasters, and other global tragedies helps us understand even more deeply what it means to be people walking in darkness. And this deep darkness only magnifies what it is to gaze upon the Light of the World. Amid it all, God is mindful of us. God does care for us. The Light of the World shines in the darkness.

Nadia Bolz Weber, shared some thoughts on grace, failures, and the soul feeling its worth in her Christmas newsletter:

When Mary sings of God in the Magnificat, she didn’t say that God looked with favor on her virtue. She didn’t say that God looked with favor upon her activism. She didn’t say that God looked with favor on the fact that she had tried so hard that she finally had become the ideal version of herself.

No. God looked with favor on her lowliness.

And yet then what do I do but constantly curse my own lowliness. Obsess about my flaws and shortcomings. Berate myself for my failings and defects of character; for not trying hard enough to become my ideal self.

But our failings and weakness and mistakes are God’s perfect entry points. It is our lowliness and our humility, not our strength and our so-called virtues where God does God’s very best work. Which makes me wonder if perhaps our obsession with self-improvement is really just a form of atheism disguised as spirituality.

Editor’s Note: Warning: The original article by Nadia Bolz Weber contains some R-rated language.

Some people love them, some people hate them. Worse, a large number of us who receive them on special occasions are indifferent to them, or even forget about them entirely. Such is the sad fate of gift cards – millions of which go unused each year and have a collective value estimated to be in the billions of dollars.

Almost two-thirds of American consumers have at least one unspent gift card tucked away in a drawer, pocket, wallet, or purse. And at least half of those consumers lose a gift card before they use it, according to a new report from Credit Summit. The report said there is as much as $21 billion of unspent money tied up in unused and lost gift cards. Of those surveyed, a majority of respondents said their unredeemed cards were worth $200 or less.

Rebecca Stumpf, an editor with Credit Summit, said “Gift cards are extremely popular and almost everyone enjoys getting them. But many people leave them sitting in a drawer to redeem on a special occasion. Use them, don’t save them. If someone has given you a gift card, they want you to spend the money.”

So why aren’t we using up what people have taken the trouble to give us? According to Ted Rossman, a senior industry analyst with CreditCards.com and Bankrate.com:

Inertia is a big factor. Sometimes the gift card is for a store that you don’t particularly like or it’s not convenient to go there. Still, ignoring the gift of free money is unwise. They’re not going to get more valuable over time; it’s the exact opposite, as inflation eats away at the value. And the longer you hold onto these unused gift cards, the more likely you are to lose them or forget about them or have the store go out of business.

Possible Preaching Angle:

In the same way, the gifts of God (salvation, spiritual gifts, talents, the Bible) often remain unused, unopened by faith, and neglected by so many people.

Debates about acceptable holiday greetings occasionally roil American retail stores and cable news shows. But when it comes to cards, most people prefer “Merry Christmas.” According to an industry survey, Americans send about 1.6 billion Christmas cards every year, and 53 percent carry the traditional religious greeting. “Happy Holidays” ranks second in card choice, and the more generic “Season’s Greetings” comes fourth after “other.”

The Christmas card tradition has proved surprisingly durable. It dates back to the Victorian era, when the celebration of Christmas was transformed into a family-centered commercial holiday. Queen Victoria started sending Christmas cards in the 1880s. Calvin Coolidge sent the first one from the White House about 40 years later.

The tradition sagged a little in the 21st century with the rise of social media; especially Facebook. But then Millennials revived the tradition as a way to add a personal connection to holiday celebrations. Card-sending households mail, on average, about 30 cards, and most people prefer pictures of kids and an old-fashioned “Merry Christmas.”

Preferred Christmas Card Greetings:

Merry Christmas 53%

Happy Holidays 21%

Season’s Greetings 12%

Other Messages 14%

Possible Preaching Angle:

Even amid today’s growing secularism, people are drawn to the joy and hope that the traditional “Merry Christmas” greeting brings. It is a constant witness to the birth of the hope of the world.

Jesus is the reason for the season. But he doesn’t show up much in the top Christmas songs played on Spotify. According to October 2021 data from the streaming service collected by Every Noise, the most-played Christmas song around the world is Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas,” followed by Wham!’s “Last Christmas,” and Ariana Grande’s “Santa Tell Me.” Some top songs make oblique references to the religious aspect of Christmas, but most stick to love, the weather, and an occasional chestnut.

Globally, the most popular Christmas song to mention Jesus is Boney M.’s “Mary’s Boy Child/Oh My Lord,” which comes in at No. 71. It is followed by Nina Nesbitt singing “O Holy Night” at No. 79 and Josh Groban and Faith Hill performing “The First Nöel” at No. 90.

The presence of Jesus in popular Christmas music varies widely by country, however, revealing differences in musical taste, holiday traditions, and the spread of Christianity by missionaries, militaries, markets, and immigration.

Top Christmas Songs to Mention Jesus Around the World:

In Sri Lanka at #1 is “Bethlehem Pure” by Anil Bharathi

In Nigeria at #4 is “Silent Night” by Just Faithful

In Egypt at #6 is “What Child is This?” by Peter Basket

In Australia at #6 is “Silent Night” by Dean Martin

In the United States at #10 is “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” by Perry Como

In France at #28 is “O Holy Night” by Tracy Chapman

In Hong Kong at #93 is “O Holy Night” by Nina Nesbitt

When the President of the United States travels by car, the Presidential motorcade is both the safest and the riskiest convoy on the planet. This globe-trotting fleet of vehicles is basically a rolling, armored White House, complete with its own response force, communications office, press corps and medical facilities. All these vehicles are moved via USAF heavy-transports, such as C-17s, and those flights come at a steep cost.

The Presidential Motorcade consists of a wide variety of vehicles. Generally, the Presidential Motorcade is made up of the following components:

• Route Car & Pilot Car – Which travel ahead of the motorcade checking the route and providing guidance.
• Sweepers – Consisting of motorcycles and patrol cars clearing the way.
• Presidential Limousine – This very heavy Cadillac is really an extremely survivable armored car. "The Beast" is outfitted with top-level ballistic armoring, night vision/infrared driving systems, a sealed cabin with an independent air supply capable of enduring a nuclear-biological-chemical attack, and even a supply of the President’s blood type. All of this is in addition to a state-of-the-art communications system.
• Identical Limousine – At least one identical car always accompanies it, and sometimes many more. These cars are used as a backup as well a serving as decoys.
• Additional Vehicles – Following the motorcade is the security detail SUV filled with heavily armed agents. There is an Electronic Countermeasures Vehicle so that if a threat is detected, smoke, chaff, and targeted jamming could disrupt an attack. Then there is the Press van, an ambulance in case there is an accident or attack and helicopters overhead to provide over-watch.

All the technology that goes into protecting the President is amazing and so is the price tag. It is estimated that the White House spends $350 million a year on the President’s transport. Just one trip costs $2,614 each and every minute to transport the leader of the free world.

Possible Preaching Angle:

On Christmas Day when the King of Kings and Lord of Lords came to earth there was no heavily armed security detail, high tech defensive systems, medical personnel, or press corps. Instead, his arrival was witnessed only by Mary and Joseph and a few humble shepherds. However, it was the costliest trip in history, since though he was rich, he became poor (2 Cor 8:9), he emptied himself and took the form of a servant (Phil. 2:6), and he left the glory and worship of heaven to be born in a stable (Luke 2:7).

In a recent issue of CT magazine Tim Larson reflects on Christ in Christmas:

Some of us are worried about others experiencing doubts: children, siblings, friends, or maybe even spouses or valued members of our churches. Perhaps we are even worried that our entire culture is losing its faith. If so, I have good news for you: Christmas is your ally in the tussle between faith and unbelief.

As a scholar of the subject, I can tell you with confidence that, by and large, atheists love Christmas. They see it as Christianity at its most inviting. Unbelievers often feel closest to the faith at Christmastime.

I have a friend who was once a zealous Christian. He left the church and became quite comfortable saying he no longer believed in God. Yet a few years ago, he told me rather sheepishly that he had gone back to his old church for its Christmas Eve service. Since then, the way he talks about Christianity has noticeably softened. I would not be surprised to hear someday that he had returned to Christ. Christmas draws even skeptics toward the faith rather than pushing them away.

In our culture … the Christmas season takes up 10 percent of the year! Our entire culture is geared up during the holiday season to make it easier to talk about Jesus. Even the Salvation Army suddenly becomes part of mainstream culture.

We can’t force our secular culture to celebrate Christmas in a Christian manner. And yet, our culture is amazingly interested in the Christian aspects of Christmas. A Christian sacred day is also a federal holiday. Many churches gather their largest congregation of the entire year at Christmas.

In the Chicago area there is a radio station that uses the standard rock format for most of the year. But for about the last ten percent of the year, you can tune in and hear, “Joy to the world! The Savior reigns,” or be invited to “cast out our sin” and let Jesus enter in, or be offered “tidings of comfort and joy” because “Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day.” We should be grateful that for six weeks during every year, even pop stations sometimes play songs that proclaim salvation through Jesus Christ.

The lights had been strung, the guest list was set and the Santa hats were ready to go for the first Christmas party Umniah Alzahery and Mike Bounacklie would openly throw in Saudi Arabia. This in a country famous for its ultraconservative form of Islam. The only problem was the tree, which they had to procure in whispers from a gift store proprietor who quietly produced one from a darkened room.

Saudis and their government have long played peekaboo over certain behaviors that were officially banned, but privately widespread. These days, however, Christmas is bursting out of the shadows.

Over the last year or so, shop windows in Riyadh have begun to display wink-wink-nod-nod gift boxes in red and green and advent calendars, while cafes dispense gingerbread cookies and florists advertise “holiday trees.”

It is all possible because of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has won over millions of young Saudis by relaxing some of the stricter religious rules. He is showcasing what he hopes will be seen as a newly tolerant, moderate Saudi Arabia to attract foreign investment and tourists.

On a recent evening, Maha Aljishi and her 13-year-old daughter were wandering through Riyadh Boulevard, an enormous new shopping, dining, and entertainment complex when they stumbled on a giant gingerbread house and a herd of twinkling reindeer.

They were the kind of decorations Ms. Aljishi and her relatives once feared getting caught putting up at home. “Am I in Saudi Arabia?” Ms. Aljishi wondered aloud. “Is this a dream? Just a few years ago, this was all haram” (an Arabic word meaning forbidden by Islamic law).

Revan Moha, 19, has never left Saudi Arabia, but nonetheless was desperate to find a Christmas tree in Riyadh this December. “Oh,” she said recently, “I wish it would snow!” She was delighted to learn that trees were readily available in party supply stores--artificial ones, of course.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Although Christmas may be celebrated in Saudi Arabia for mixed reasons, it is an opportunity for them to hear “good news of great joy that will be for all the people” (Luke 2:10). As Jesus said, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a testimony to all nations and then the end will come” (Matt 24:14).