On Christmas day each year we celebrate the birth of our lord and savior Jesus Christ – at least those of us who have accepted him as our personal savior do.

Then there are those who only look at Christmas as a day off work, and perhaps a good meal, and don’t care about the true meaning of Christmas.

Jesus was born in a manger in the town of Bethlehem some 2,000 years ago and was destined to be the savior of all mankind. We can read the story of his birth, death, burial and resurrection in the Holy Bible.

No matter what denomination you might be, we have the same God, except those who chose to worship a false god.

The other side of Christmas is the happy time of year when families gather together to enjoy a meal.

We put up Christmas trees and decorate them.

These days most Christmas trees are artificial, but when I was a boy growing up artificial trees were unheard of.

We went out into the woods — or bought one from a tree farm —cut it down and brought it back to our home.

We took a needle and thread to string popcorn for decorations. Chestnuts were also used. I can vaguely remember the string of lights on our tree.

Times were tough after the great depression hit our country, so most of the time we would receive a sack with an orange and some candy as our Christmas present. We didn’t complain, as we understood it was a way of life back then and times were hard.

Christmas today has become highly commercialized. People spend hundreds of dollars to trees and gifts for family and friends – I think everybody id a bit guilty of this.

Then there are the unfortunate people who don’t have any thing at Christmas time. Thank God there are churches, organizations and individuals who work hard to be sure the needy don’t go without on Christmas.

Our city will soon have all the decorations up in downtown and folks will begin to decorate their homes for the holidays, so we must remember why we celebrate Christmas.