We know this girl, Kristen, from Denver, who recently celebrated her 21st birthday. Her family threw her a huge surprise party. They secretly planned for months and months. They reserved a private room at a trendy sushi restaurant, decorated it, and invited 50 guests. They spent thousands of dollars to make this a special event. When the night arrived, Kristen just thought she was going out with some friends. She had no idea she was walking in to the most extravagant birthday party of her life.

Sadly, she was so overwhelmed that she had a difficult time enjoying the evening. Kristen is uncomfortable being the center of attention at large gatherings. And, she’s not even a huge fan of sushi. Later, she told us that she would have rather used the money spent on the party to pay for a couple long-distance friends to fly in and just hang out. Generally, she avoids big social events and instead prefers to just chill and spend quality time with a close friend. It was a shame that all this work, preparation, time, and money had been spent on something that the guest of honor really didn’t want. It was as if her family didn’t know her very well. They never asked her how she would want to celebrate her big day, and it seems, didn’t take the time to consider her personality and preferences.

Every December we throw a month-long birthday party. Supposedly it’s for someone else…supposedly Jesus. Yet, how many of us have paused to actually ask Jesus how He wants us to celebrate His birthday? (I’m not raising my hand.) Have we spent time considering who He is and what His preferences might be? How would He prefer our money to be spent? How would He choose to have us use our time and energy this month? In what ways could we celebrate so that it is obvious to the world that Jesus is the guest of honor?

Now, don’t get me wrong, Jesus loved a good party with good party food and drinks (remember, His first miracle in the Bible was making incredible wine at a wedding party). And God is the greatest gift-giver ever. So I’m not suggesting we throw out the presents, chocolate covered pretzels, and fun family traditions (I still cheered when I saw Santa at the end of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, and I still asked for a few more t-shirts for Christmas). I just wonder if Jesus showed up in person during the month of December would He recognize that we were ultimately doing all of “this” to celebrate Him? Do our actions and attitudes reveal that we really know Him?

We have the opportunity to refocus and re-align our holiday season with God and His desires. Let’s ask Jesus how he wants us to remember His birthday? Let’s take time to consider how we can creatively party in a way that reflects the guest of honor. Then let’s get to it…pass the chocolate pretzels and let the celebration begin!

Response ideas:

• Pray and ask Jesus to help you see how He wants YOU to celebrate His birthday (cause it will be different for everyone). Be looking and listening for His answer over the following days. Then act on what He communicates to you.

• Read stories about Jesus (from “Mark,” in the Bible, for instance) with your family, or talk with your family about familiar Jesus-stories, and write down things that seem important to Him. Then incorporate some of those things into how you celebrate. For example, off the top of my head I can think of Jesus helping the poor, widows & orphans, feeding people, spending time with people to get to know them better, visiting the sick (and healing them…but that may be a stretch for some of us–haha….maybe just visiting and praying for someone), letting children sit on His lap, building/making things (as a carpenter). This could be as elaborate as researching organizations that help the poor, and volunteering, or as simple as talking about the story of Jesus feeding the 5000 with bread and fish, and then have your kids give little boxes of goldfish crackers to their friends for Christmas. Or, you could have your kids draw a picture about Christmas and then give it to a neighbor so the neighbor can also remember Jesus this season.

• As you give a gift to a close friend or relative, think about your relationship with that person and the uniqueness of that person. Then creatively wrap/decorate the present in such a way that the one receiving it knows instantly it is for him/her, without having to read a nametag. (This can be done any number of ways. Think about using certain colors, pictures from magazines, little toys that represent something the person likes, candy/food tied to the gift, etc.)

• Eat cheap, simple dinners for a week (bean & cheese burritos, for example) and donate the money you saved to a global cause that helps those in need. Here are couple organizations doing really cool things:

A Way to Help — www.awaytohelp.org
International Princess Project -http://www.intlprincess.org/index.php/ipp/blog/P8/