“Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.” Matthew 5:4 KJV
Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay
My father died years ago in December of 2014. Having a close family member pass away at any time of the year is difficult but having to plan a funeral during the Christmas season makes it more difficult as colorful Christmas lights adorn homes and businesses and cheerful Christmas music plays over the store speaker systems of retail outlets.
My mother’s world came crashing down that day and my brother and I were left to pick up the pieces, box them up and help mom through it even though our hearts were shattered as well.
With an empty house to return to, the decision was made for mom to pack some clothes and move from Arkansas and stay with my wife and me at our home here in South Texas.
Once back home with Christmas Day being just days away, the situation was surreal. It was like looking at the rest of the world’s holiday celebrations from a different place.
Because my mother was used to having the TV on throughout the day, we decided to get our home connected with cable TV service so as to at least provide that level of normalcy for her.
While my mother would occasionally watch TV programs such as morning daytime talk programs and the Hallmark Channel movies, for the most part these programs played in the background. The daytime talk program’s sets were adorned with Christmas greenery, lights and glitter and the host of the show and guests each had a holiday coffee cup on the table in front of them which no-one drank from while on the air.
I even found a few programs like Highway Through Hell that helped through that time. Something about watching wrecker services respond to 18-wheeler truck accidents in the middle of the night on the Coquihalla Highway also called “the Coke” for short ,is a treacherous Canadian highway system, located in British Columbia, is prone to ice and snow during the winter, as a needed distraction for me. While I was numb with grief, a tow truck driver was hooking up a tow chain to the chassis of a wrecked big rig in a 20 degrees below zero blizzard on the Coke.
During commercial breaks, Kohls Department Store’s commercials played with frequency and as Christmas got closer each day the Kohl’s commercials kept posting gift items and sales with the underlying message the most amazing holiday,Christmas, was nearly here. With each passing day, the commercials would build the excitement with the crescendo of expectation increasing a little bit more, day by day, hour by hour.
With no shopping list to complete myself, I was curious as to what peak this retailer’s commercials were building to. Would Kohls run any commercials late on Christmas Eve when all of their stores were closed? If so, what would these commercials say? Perhaps they just wouldn;t run any. Or, perhaps there would a new commercial with a message that said,
“It’s here! Christmas is here! Merry Christmas from all of us at Kohls! We wish you all of the peace and plenty during this special day as you spend quality time with your loved ones.” That was not the commercial Kohls ran with. Nope.
It was about 9:15 PM on Christmas Eve when, you guessed it, a Kohl’s commercial came on during the break.
What did it say?
“We’ll be open early the day after Christmas, and we have some amazing after Christmas deals you won’t want to miss!”
Kohls would not spend one precious ad dollar to just wish people a Merry Christmas. No, any commercial they ran had to drive sales.
In a way, I knew how Ralphie Parker, the main character of A Christmas Story must have felt when he took his Ovaltine decoder ring with the code in hand, racing to crack an urgent secret code broadcast by Little Orphan Annie herself. And then Ralphie cracks the code: . Be sure to drink your Ovaltine.”
I remember after Christmas sending an email to Kohl’s corporate office shaming them on their crass and self-serving commercialism. I didn’t expect a reply nor did I get one.
I am thankful that while the world celebrates a secular Christmas season, our Loving God hears the cries of the grieving and sends His Son Jesus into our world to save us from our sins and to tangibly show His abiding love for us. This Christmas we oftentimes wearily wait for Jesus’s return and while we wait, we are comforted by His Holy Spirit.
Luke 2:11 KJV“For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.”
