Amanda Snidefeller didn't want anything to do with Christmas.  She had it up to her nose with twinkling lights, mistletoes,  and songs about 8 tiny reindeer.  She was tired of boughs of holly and snowmen who must have had some magic in that old top had they wore.  Amanda Snidefeller was fed up.

Her parents didn’t quite understand her; her brothers and sisters were positively dumbfounded; and her friends looked at her as if she was from Mars.

“Fed up with Christmas?” they chided.  “How could such a thing be?” they snorted.  “Who would think such disastrous thoughts?” they scoffed.

They tried to change her mind, of course-- with cookies that looked like Christmas trees, concerts with the most beautiful singing and fun songs, loads of toys and walks through the lights.  They took her on trips to the mall and she drank enough eggnog to make her tummy hurt.

No matter what they did, Amanda Snidefeller was still positively and completely fed up!

But what her brothers and sisters, mom and dad, friends from school and everyone she met did not know was the reason why she was fed up.  Had she outgrown presents and toys?  Did she not like parties and cocoa, Christmas trees and lights?  Was she just a grumpy grouch that would rather keep things all to herself than give and share with others?

No, Amanda Snidefeller was not a grouch, still loved her dollies, enjoyed parties and (to tell the truth) even liked eggnog and figgy pudding.

Then what was wrong with poor Amanda Snidefeller to make her so positively and completely fed up with Christmas?

I’ll tell you what it was, and it’s not what you think.  What Amanda Snidefeller never told another soul (no, not one!) was with all her grumbling and grouching, mumbling and crinkling of her nose was the reason why she was fed up with Christmas––it was because she had a question.  A question you say?  That’s it?   Yes, a question.  Something she wanted to ask but never did, and so it was twisted up inside her such that she started to dislike Christmas.  It wasn’t a little thing she thought about, nor was it something that just occasionally crossed her mind––it had turned into a full blown whopper of a question.

Here’s what her question was:  with all the snow and Santas, reindeer and elves, playful songs and silly poems, stockings and stuffers-- Amanda Snidefeller could not figure out for the life of her why there was a baby in the midst of all this mayhem!   Elves she sort of understood- someone had to make toys after all-- flying reindeer with red noses were understandable enough when you thought about how foggy it was-- but a BABY?   You didn’t see the baby everywhere of course, but in the strangest places she would see him-- wrapped in clothes and lying in straw, no less!

So she sat and thought and thought.  She wondered and quizzed her other brothers and sisters, friends and neighbors.  But no one seemed to have a satisfying answer.  “Just part of the season” some would say.  Others just said as they gazed off into the distance, “oh, how I love that story”

Finally, Amanda Snidefeller decided to take matters into her own hands.  No more being fed up with Christmas-- there has to be a reason for this baby and she was going to find it!    So she looked up “baby” in the dictionary and even typed it into google.  She looked up straw.  She even looked up “Christmas straw” but all she found were straws for chocolate milk that had Santa on them.

Then one day, when her parents were taking her yet again to the malls to try to get her to have some holiday spirit, she sat down in disgust.  “I can see why Scrooge had such bah and humbug attitude” she thought to herself.

But as she sat and scowled a strange thing happened, she started to listen to the music high above her head that was playing on the mall’s loudspeakers.

“Come, Thou long expected Jesus

Born to set Thy people free

From our fears and sins release us

Let us find our rest in Thee

Born Thy people to deliver

Born a child, and yet a King

Born to reign in us forever

Now Thy gracious Kingdom bring”

Why that must be it!  She had heard that Christmas carol a thousand times but never listened to the words before.  Was this baby a king?  A king that came to set people free?

As she continued to sit she kept listening, the next song said,

“Hark the Herald angels sing, glory to the newborn king

Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled.”

Angels that sang for this baby king?  Singing because this baby brought God back together with people who fought against him?

She couldn’t believe her ears.  Was there really more of a reason to why we celebrated Christmas after all?  Was there more to Christmas than toys and reindeer and candy canes and cookies?  Why it seemed that there was!

And the last song she heard as she sat on that bench with shoppers hurrying by with their packages made her think that her question had an answer after all.

Joy to the World, the Lord has come,

Let earth receive her king

Let every heart prepare him room

And heaven and nature sing

Then Amanda Snidefeller did an amazing thing (amazing especially when you think how fed up she had been with Christmas).  Amanda Snidefeller started to sing.  She didn’t fully understand all that she was singing, but she knew the words because she had heard them all her life but they had never meant anything to her. Now this baby, she realized, was the only thing worth really celebrating.

Now, you might think this strange of course, that someone might have such a question and find the answer in the mall playing on the loudspeakers, but that is what happened.  But don’t you worry about Amanda Snidefeller.  She found the rest of the answer to her question that day, and in the many days that followed as she went home and pulled out the old family Bible.  Her mom and dad and brothers and sisters were so shocked at her discovery, they even went to a Christmas Eve service at a church (something they had never done before!), There, she sang with all her heart because she had come to believe that the Little baby in the straw was the King of all, the Lord of all, Jesus who came to save her from her sins.  And this is why Amanda Snidefeller was never fed up at Christmas again, because she found the Savior Jesus and rejoiced in Him all her life.

Some Verses to read to your family this Christmas

John 1:14 “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.  We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of Grace and truth.”

Matthew 1:21 “She will give birth to a Son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

Romans 3:23 “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

John 1:12,13  “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husbands will, but born of God.”