What is Christmas?

These last few weeks, I have been concentrating on getting Christmas gifts crafted, which is why I didn't blog last week. Can't reveal what I've been doing. But today I resumed my neighbourhood walk and got a little more fodder for the sketchbook. As we draw closer to Christmas, there are many more decorations going up in the neighbourhood. You see red bows everywhere, some trees are bedecked with Christmas balls, every door has a wreath and lots of people have evergreen boughs in pots at their front door. During the day you don't notice the lights that have been put out but many homes are ornamented with them and as soon as it gets dark the neighbourhood glows with all kinds of colours. Many people also have those blow up snowmen, christmas trees, santas on their lawns too but this morning when I walked past them, most were deflated and lying in a heap on the front lawn.

But something was certainly missing from all these festive decorations and I realized it when I saw a sign on someone's lawn that said, "Keep Christ in Christmas!" In most of these homes, Christ is nowhere to be seen. To me, Christmas is so very superficial if Christ is not the center of it. It is why so many people get very blue in January because their Christmas is a temporary high and lets them down every time. It is Jesus Christ we should be celebrating and meditating on during this season. That gives us lasting joy. Years ago, I had an idea to do two paintings on board that I could hang outside during the Christmas season. The idea was to get people to think about what they meant. I never did paint them but I did research and plan them. One painting was of a beautiful Christmas wreath and the other was the wreath without needles or decoration but instead it looked like a crown of thorns. The caption was "Accept the Gift". I didn't paint them perhaps because I was afraid of what people would think. I guess that is exactly why I should paint them. Perhaps, I will get the plans out again and get them ready for next Christmas.

The weather was unseasonably warm today so it was a good day to put together my Christmas pot at the front door. Once again I used a lot of my dried and dead plants from the garden to spruce it up.

This is last week's drawing with paint on it. Everything is truly ready for winter but the snow just isn't coming to Toronto.

These are some of the Christmas decorations I observed on my walks. I leafed through the whole sketchbook so far and it is a wonderful progression through the seasons. I hope we get some snow so I can include that as well.