Are You Ready For Christmas?

I can't think how many times I am asked the question:  "Are you ready for Christmas?"  There certainly is a lot of preparation that goes into making our holiday celebration a success.  There are menus to plan,  food to buy, presents to choose, a house to decorate, travel plans to make etc. etc. I presume these are the preparations that people are talking about and if my assumption is correct then my answer will almost always be "NO NOT YET."    But really there is a preparation that is more important to me than all these things.  It is the preparation of my heart to enter into the celebration of God incarnate - the remembrance of this huge event in history when God became man.  What makes that so important? In my mind it is God's statement that He cares.  He did not create simply as an experiement.  Nor does He just look on from a distance.  He engages with his creation and that gives importance to who I am.  His experience of birth, life and death all add to my assurance that He truly understands and so His promises and assurances as found in scripture can be trusted.
In years gone by, the Christian Church considered the season of Advent as a sombre season of preparation for this great celebration.  The preparation was spiritual and not material.  Today, it often feels that the material preparation has completely overtaken the spiritual preparation.  We have lost something that we need to recover for the sake of our spiritual health.