If you already took your Christmas tree down then today would be a great day to grab it out of the trash and put it back where it belongs!<\/p>\n
Just because December 25th is now 2 weeks behind us doesn’t mean that Christmas is over, especially if you’re \u00a0from Ukraine.<\/p>\n
In Ukraine we celebrate Christmas on January 7th which has something to do with the differences between the Julian calendar<\/a>\u00a0and the Gregorian calendar<\/a>.<\/p>\n We’ve noticed a few benefits to celebrating Christmas later.<\/p>\n 1. It takes the pressure off. Since Christmas comes after New Years much of the pre-holiday madness has already quieted down.<\/p>\n 2. There’s less commercialization. That means you get to simply focus on Jesus instead of packaging up presents.<\/p>\n 3. It starts your year off right. There’s something special about the first holiday of the new year being Christmas!<\/p>\n 4. It reminds us that as followers of Christ we ought to make everyday a celebration of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.<\/p>\n Our church, Hope for People, in Odessa, Ukraine used January 7th as an opportunity to reach out to the neighborhood with the Christmas story. They held a Christmas parade in the church yard. They did a great job with the costumes, the animals and with getting the message of the gospel out.
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