There are two holidays that get most of us more excited than any others – Christmas and our birthday. What do those two holidays have in common? PRESENTS! It makes sense to give presents to someone to celebrate the day they were born. But have you ever wondered why we exchange presents at Christmas time?
Shortly after Jesus was born, some very important men (called Magi) from a faraway country traveled to give baby King Jesus some very special and extremely expensive gifts (Matthew 2:1-2, 9-11). They were acknowledging what an incredible gift God was giving to us, by sending Jesus here on earth to be a human, living a perfect life, able to die to pay the for the price for our sins. We don’t really know exactly what day Jesus was born, but for all kinds of reasons I won’t go into, December 25th was picked on our calendar to be the day we remember and celebrate it.
So, the purpose of Christmas isn’t to get (or give) presents. The purpose of Christmas is to celebrate the birthday of Jesus. And since we can’t wrap up and give a present to Jesus like the Magi did, we give them to those we love and are special to us.
Christmas is a birthday celebration of the 
most important person ever born on this earth! In our family, every year we even have a cake that says, “Happy Birthday Jesus”. I hope you and your family will find ways to remember the greatest gift ever given at Christmas time. It’s not a Christmas gift, but a birthday gift – a gift from the birthday boy to every one of us!
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