The Better Beard At Christmas

December 19, 2011

The following is an excerpt from an article written for InterVarsity USA by Kent Annan

I’ve never donned a beard or red suit for Christmas. So far that’s my personal line.

But something happens when you have kids. Categories of cool, kitsch, hip, or tacky no longer matter much. It’s a short distance from this to mowing the lawn wearing black dress tube socks with sandals and a Santa hat (I live in Florida; this is possible). But mostly the shift is a good, liberating change.

Why? Because you’re freed from caring what others think of you, and even a bit from what you think of you, into concentrating more on how you can love others. In this case, particularly one’s children.

Our hand-me-down Christmas tree, though plastic, has lost half its needles, but I love it because my two-year-old son and six-year-old daughter love it. I hung Christmas lights on the house for the first time in my life, a simple line of colorful LED icicles across the top of the garage. Yet the kids proudly cheered.

Last night I was preparing our kids to go to the town Christmas parade, which pre-progeny I would have avoided. Just before getting in the car I received a text from a family my wife and I remain very close to from our time living and working in Haiti…[read more]