5 Ideas to make Christmas Special

Here are 5 ideas to turn your Christmas into an extra special day...

1. Have a home made family dinner: Get the family together, and dine on home cooked meals, which are prepared together with the family members. Make the cooking and dining a fun experience and get together with your loved ones to share the special time.

2. Send anonymous gifts: Be a Santa! Send a gift to someone you know who has been keeping down, or is not well, or someone who is not expecting a gift. Send the gift anonymously. Do not forget to give something really good, something that the receiver would really appreciate, it need not be something expensive or very flashy, just something that cheers the other up. What makes Christmas better than making Christmas better for others! And I promise, deep down you feel very good.

3. Call friends instead of SMSing them: How dry would the wishes be if we just SMS our friends on the Christmas day! Call them, all of them, and wish them a very Merry Christmas, in a very merry voice. Forget the bills and balance for a while, and live the Christmas spirit!(And anyway, I think the mobile carriers will charge on 25th, so why not make a call instead.)

4. Watch 'A Christmas Carol' with your friends and family: A very well made movie indeed. Even though it is an animation film, it will capture the attention of a mature audience as well. The movie will surely help us to look back at our lives and change it for good. (Though I won't recommend it to kids younger than 10, some scenes are scary.)

5. Pray for a better year ahead: No, I do not mean the 30 second, close your eyes, clamp your hands together, "God please..." type of a prayer. Pray all day long, while working, cooking, cleaning, greeting, smiling, sleeping, dancing, whatever you may be doing, keep communicating with Jesus, in the depth of your heart, open up yourself, and share your fears about the coming year, your expectations, your shortcomings. Just keeping talking, praying, asking, sharing.

Hope you have a Very Merry Christmas!

Awaiting the best time of the year

CHRISTMAS IS HERE!

You might say it is a little to early to shout that, but I really can't wait for 25th of December to dawn. I am already under the influence of 'Christmas Spirit'!


It is indeed the best time of the year, the cold winter, bells chiming, carols being sung, Santa and his gifts, friends, family, cakes, sweets, and the loving and innocent Babe in the manger.


The three kings, and shepherds and angels, Our Lord made a real entrance into this world. No other baby boy must have created such a lot of hype and happiness and political upheaval at his birth.


I am preparing for Christmas, I am preparing for the coming of Christ, I don't want to be like the inn keepers who said no to Mary and Joseph, I want to invite them into my home and into my heart. I want to spread the news and the Christmas cheer about His coming. I want to make sure this time the King gets a royal place to be born in. A clean and loving heart is what would be fitting for Him.


I want to know this young lady who took up such a daring task of delivering the Child of God against all odds. I want to know how did Mary get the guts to say YES and how can I get the same conviction to say it. How did she believe in God's plan and stuck to it till the end, when all I do is try to run away?


It is a marvel and a mystery, this birth that took place more than 2000 years ago, the event still makes people to pause and think, it still ignites the fire of God's love in every heart, it still shows that there is good on earth and it will remain forever. God becoming man, becoming a Baby so pure, frail, innocent. I do not comprehend it in its fullness, this act of kindness, mercy and love of God, but I am glad He was born for me, for you, for all who are alive, for all who are dead and gone, for all who are yet to come.

Merry Christmas!