Letter to the Editor

Your view: First Christmas

Sunday, December 23, 2007

If there had not been a first Christmas, there would be no:

Stockings on the mantle, no wreaths on the door.

No letters to Santa, tinsel, ornaments, candy canes, Christmas lights, cards, reindeer, Christmas trees, elves, Santa, St. Nicholas, carolers or Christmas music, no decorations. December would be cold, bleak and eventless.

There would be no story of Mary and Joseph in a stable in a small village of Bethlehem. No shepherds, wise men, no angels' songs of glad tidings and good will to men.

No Christmas star to celebrate the virgin birth (a symbol of God's love for mankind), no wee babe named Jesus, destined to die, his lifeless body bearing scars of nails, thorns, the spear and the sins of us all - until his return.

Without a first Christmas there would have been no crucifixion, resurrection, redemption, no world worth living in, and no hope of eternal life.

I would not be writing this - and you would not be reading it!

Merry Christmas!

Hope Terrell