When your holiday celebrations have ended and you’re relaxing and preparing for the new year, take a few minutes to evaluate your holiday season. Think about what Christmas means to you and whether you accomplished everything you wanted to this year. It’s evaluation time.

• What signifies Christmas for you? {Volunteering for the Christmas Eve service at church? Drinking hot chocolate and driving around looking at Christmas lights? Black Friday shopping?}
• Which activities did you cut this year? Did you miss them?
• How did your family gatherings go? {Did you have meaningful conversations? Did you capture the photo moments? Did you have enough food?}
• Did you reach out to neighbors or those in need as much as you wanted to?
• Were you rushed and last-minute or did you have everything perfectly planned out ahead of time?
• Did you have unreasonable expectations of yourself or others?
• Did you miss a big event (like the Nutcracker performance) because you didn’t know when it was?
• What are your must-have activities/events? What can you live without?

Write out a bullet list or a few paragraphs about this year’s experience and things that you want to change or keep the same and why. Then, file the info away in a file called “Christmas (YEAR)” and mark your calendar for mid-October to pull out and review the file before you plan your next years’ celebrations! Next year, Christmas can be everything you wanted it to be and more, with a little advanced preparation and focus.

For me, I feel as if I’ve had a successful Christmas if we’ve slowed down from the hustle and bustle enough to focus on the real meaning of Christmas. Jesus Christ come to earth as a baby to be our Savior. Wow – it doesn’t get much more meaningful or precious than that! Everything else – all of the food, traditions, time spent with family, etc. – pales in comparison to truly offering praise and thanks to the One who gave the greatest sacrifice of all to save me from my sin. Happy Birthday, Jesus!