I feel like a scrooge. I watched Elf the other night, where those with enough “Christmas Spirit’ end up “Saving Christmas.” While the myth of Santa seems tame enough, all its recent mythical attachments increasingly bother me.

Christmas, in its essence, is about the Creator of the Universe giving an undeserved, unearned, and immensely necessary gift to creation. The Creator incarnates himself as a human in order to save humanity who brought ruin on themselves. This gift is one of grace — unmerited favor. So can we really “save Christmas” through warm feelings and jolly singing? Christmas does not need saving, but we do.

Not only is the celebration of divine unequivocal gift-giving regularly replaced with a much lesser story, but the gift itself is stripped of all that is of lasting value. It doesn’t take long to learn that getting more stuff does not deeply satisfy. Santa is a messiah whose gifts are fleeting and temporal. They will corrode, fall apart, and leave us wanting more. But the blessing of God is of divine making, of eternal quality, and does not disappoint.

As we enter into Advent, let us take time to prepare our hearts to receive God’s gift in Jesus and treasure Him more than whatever stuff we might think we want or is marketed to us.