About a Christmas season of thanksgiving� 

Psalm 100:4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. (NIV)

Christmas is a time for giving. Christmas is especially a time to give thanks for the blessings of God.

When we feel our worst, we have a tendency to not give thanks. Of all the blessings anyone could ever have, Christ being born into the world is our greatest blessing of all. When the darkness begins to attack us, we can forget to count, forget to look, and even forget to make an effort to count His blessings in our life. During the Christmas season, with all the busy activities and concerns, stop and think about how your life is blessed by Christ. For some of us, we might have to look for our blessings with greater intensity and greater effort. However, our life is teeming with blessings so numerous we cannot count them all. We can look around us and see despair, sickness, and opportunities lost. Yet we can also look around us and see hope, wellness, and opportunities gained. The greatest gift we can give others is the gift of helping them see the blessing of counting their blessings. The greatest gift we can give ourselves is counting the blessings right before us. When we live in thanksgiving for Christ being born into the world, the power of darkness has no power over us. When we survey the manger scene and understand the magnitude of God's gift in Christ, all darkness disappears as our heart is lifted in His love and grace.