Anticipating Christmas before celebrating Thanksgiving does not diminish the November holiday, which became a national holiday when President Lincoln declared it a national day of “Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.” It instead gives focus to the day that is meant to be spent in prayer and worship. I honestly don’t know anyone who really celebrates Thanksgiving the way it was meant to be. It has become all about gathering, eating, watching and/or playing football. Many say what they are thankful for, but I don’t hear much talk about who they are thankful to. I don’t see the outpouring of worship for that God who has given us everything. But I’m okay with that. Just as I don’t fault people their celebrations of Christmas that have nothing to do with Christ, I don’t want to spoil the fun of those celebrating Thanksgiving without giving praise to our Heavenly Father. I am no better than anyone else in that regard. My Thanksgiving is quite secular. However, celebrating Thanksgiving in anticipation of Christmas has turned my thoughts clearly and distinctly to that for which I am most thankful, my Savior. There is nothing I am more thankful for than the plan of salvation which he has brought to pass through his atonement that overcame death and sin and offers me complete forgiveness and redemption. And the centerpiece of that is his mortal life which began with what we celebrate at Christmas and ended with what we commemorate at Easter.
We use evergreens as Christmas trees to symbolize eternal life, the gift we are offered through the sacrifice of God’s only begotten Son, whose birth we celebrate at Christmas, whose death and resurrection we remember at Easter, the gift for which we should give more thanks than for anything else. Why then should we not have a beautiful, gloriously decorated evergreen tree as the centerpiece for each of those holidays?
