Thanksgiving is Thursday, and Advent is quickly following. As a Christian blogger, I feel a certain pressure (a gentle pressure, but a pressure nonetheless) to write about these celebrations. Yesterday, Thanksgiving came in handy, I’ll admit.  I didn’t have to spend hours Saturday afternoon scouring through YouTube for a hymn that interested me. A seasonal hymn really bailed me out!

But for the most part, I don’t get terribly excited about either reading or writing Thanksgiving and Advent articles. That’s particularly strange to me because I love the doctrine of the Incarnation.

People have given up trying to figure me out.

Seriously, I think there are two reasons this year that I feel a heightened aversion to Thanksgiving and Christmas articles. The first is selfish, I confess. Without going into all the details, I feel threatened by Christmas week because my morning PCA is taking that entire week off. We’ve been working on getting coverage since February, only to hit repeated brick walls.

Thanksgiving means time grows shorter. As much as I remind myself of God’s sovereignty, the feeling of dread grows with each mention of the holidays. It’s hard to write about them when I can’t shake this sense of foreboding.

But my second discomfort with seasonal blog posts might be a little less self-serving. As much as I know the Lord deserves our gratitude, and as fascinated as I am by His  Incarnation, writing about those things at this time of year often feels somewhat contrived. We’re expected to write about giving thanks during the last week of November and we’re expected to write about Christ’s Incarnation throughout December.

I’m by no means opposed to either topic. Please don’t misunderstand me on this point! I just chafe at the idea that, because I’m a Christian, those are the topics I’m supposed to read and write about at this time of year.

Maybe I will write a few seasonal articles between now and December 25. If something strikes my imagination, I probably will. But a passage I read today encouraged me that, while affirming those who enjoy seasonal articles, God doesn’t hold me to any obligation to read or write them.

⁵ One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. ⁶ The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. ⁷ For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. ⁸ For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. ⁹ For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. ~~Romans 14:5-9 (ESV)

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