When we were children, all we could think about at Christmas was getting gifts. Of course there was always the usual: socks, underwear, a book, that knit sweater from Aunt Mabel… you know, things you needed.

Unwrapping those gifts was fun – until you saw what was inside them. Sometimes you would come down on Christmas morning to find an abundance of gifts under the tree. Unwrapping those was a lot more fun, because the odds were much higher that some of them would contain what you wanted.

And once in a while there was a really big gift, which was the ultimate, because a big gift is almost always something you want, not something you need.

This Christmas season, God has an abundance of gifts for you – big gifts like joy, love, peace, hope and faith. Gifts that are what we need, and ultimately what we want as well.