HAVE YOU CONSIDERED...

Every Christmas I am privileged to celebrate, my stocking is figuratively filled with memories. Many are from my childhood. One of my fondest childhood Christmas memories is going to cut our Christmas tree. Back then there were no tree lots around town or any commercial cutit yourself tree farms.

My heart beat faster with excitement when I heard my dad say on a Saturday morning, "Well it is time for us to go cut our Christmas tree."

My parents, my brother Bob and I, and usually the family dog, would head down to the Timber Ridge section of Cherokee County to Mr. Joe Black's farm. They were good friends of my parents and kindly let us walk over their woods and pastures until we finally spotted the perfect cedar tree. My dad sawed it down and carried it to our car, often tying it on the top.

It was so indelibly written into my memory, that years later when I had a wife and four children, we continued the tradition. Even though some years we lived in a large city, we were always fortunate to have some church members who lived in the country and whose kindness allowed us to carry on our "cutting of the Christmas tree" tradition.

Now with a wife and four children and the family dog, I soon discovered finding the perfect tree took longer to get a unanimous OK on the perfect one. To ward off impatience and stress, I played (using the term loosely) Christmas carols on my harmonica and the children would sing. OK, so it did not sound exactly like the Von Trapp family, but it was a joyful sound anyway. When the selection was finally made, and the tree cut down, all the kids wanted to help drag it to the station wagon.

Strange but true. As meaningful as the Christmas tree is to me, I never really thought much about how the tree became such a big part of Christmas.

Pastor David Jeremiah in his monthly TURNING POINTS MAGAZINE AND DEVOTIONAL BOOK explains the connection: In ancient Scandinavia, the evergreen tree was a symbol of life amid the darkness of winter. They cut them down and brought them into their homes as a source of encouragement. In the 600s, Boniface, a British missionary, traveled Europe using pines as object lesson of eternal life for the harsh winter could not kill them. He also used their triangular shape to teach about the Trinity.People began to bring trees into their homes to create a mid-winter celebratory atmosphere.

Tradition tells us that it was Martin Luther who popularized trees as a Christmas symbol of the new life given to us by the Christ child. Luther also wrote the carol that has been sung around Christmas trees for nearly 500 years: "From heaven above to earth I come, to bear good news to every home."

This year as your family gathers around your Christmas tree to share gifts and expressions of love, let your tree be a reminder of the greatest gift the world has ever known: THE GIFT OF A SAVIOR, CHRIST JESUS THE LORD!

The night the Christ child was born, he had no place to stay. Make sure He has an eternal place to abide in your heart and life. If not, you missed not only the true meaning of the tree, but the true meaning of Christmas as well.

Dr. French O'Shields is a Gaffney native and a retired Presbyterian minister.