Once upon a December afternoon, I decided to bake cookies for a party. I could have skipped it; in fact, I nearly talked myself out of it. Baking is not the most efficient use of my time. Nevertheless, I put aside productivity because it felt like Christmas, like celebration. Choosing Christmas doesn’t come naturally to me. You see, the church I grew up in didn’t believe in celebrating Christmas, supposedly because it was a pagan holiday and a consumerist frenzy. Looking back, though, I wonder if perhaps the church leaders weren’t really afraid of materialism or paganism. I wonder if...
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