A Sunday School teacher was trying to get some discussion going in her children’s Sunday School class during the Christmas season. She said, “If the flower of Easter is a lily, what is the flower of Christmas?” She expected someone to say, “Poinsettia.” Instead one child shouted out, “I think it’s the incarnation.” That child did not know there was much truth in that confused answer. Christmas is about the incarnation.
President Calvin Coolidge was often called “Silent Cal.” It has become part of the legend of the man. Although, he wasn’t silent about Christmas. Here is what he said as his Christmas message in 1927: “To the American People: Christmas is not a time or a season but a state of mind. To cherish peace and good will, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas. If we think on these things, there will be born in us a Savior and over us will shine a star sending its gleam of hope to the world.”
Robert Louis Stevenson wrote this prayer for Christmas: “Loving Father, help us remember the birth of Jesus, that we may share in the song of angels, the gladness of the shepherds and the worship of the wise men. Close the door of hate, and open the door of love all over the world. Let kindness come with every gift and good desires with every greeting. “Deliver us from evil by the blessing which Christ brings, and teach us to be merry with clean hearts. May the Christmas morning make us happy to be Thy children, and the Christmas evening bring us to our beds with grateful thoughts, forgiving and forgiven, for Jesus’ sake, Amen!”