I’m the world’s most avid fan of Christmas. Don’t believe me? Allow me to present the evidence.

I insist that we watch It’s a Wonderful Life at least twice before Christmas day, and at least once on Christmas Day. And it’s not really Christmas until I’ve seen Alistair Sim as Ebenezer Scrooge.

I believe that if every room in the house—including the bathroom and the laundry room—doesn’t have at least a tiny, plastic Christmas tree or a small snow globe, we haven’t really tried.

I love Christmas pageants with adorable kids who forget their lines, kids who remember their lines, and kids who forget their lines and make up their own lines.

I love the sentimental TV Christmas specials, featuring the latest pop sensation (to be forgotten by next Christmas), Dick Clark’s remarkable face lift, and Charlie Brown’s pathetic Christmas tree.

I love the televised parades with insufferable commentary from morning news anchors who demonstrate why morning news anchors should not veer from their focus-group tested, teleprompted scripts.

I love the Christmas lights that might sap Saddam—bought fossil fuels and ignite statewide brown outs, but make the drive along Highway 29 in California’s Napa Valley a treat at night.

I love the music, even the bad remakes of "White Christmas" sung by has-been Grand-Ole-Opry singers, boy bands, or even Carol Channing. Hey, I even pull out our Christmas records before Macy’s and Sears department stores pull out their fake garlands and syrofoam snowmen. (Now that’s early!)

I love fruitcake, and like all good Adventists, I’m partial to Texas Manor. (Do they still make it?)

I love the weather, even though Michelle (my wife, who grew up in Virginia and Colorado) reminds me that California experiences only two seasons—dry and damp.

I love cranberry sauce from a can, stuffing from a box, and pumpkin piefrom—well, I insist that my pumpkin pie be homemade. (I do have standards!)

Although I recognize that it is better to give than to receive, I must confess that I love to receive.

I even love the commercialism. I love the packed department stores and the long lines of cheerful people clinging to cheap merchandise (although I often wonder whether some of it was assembled by a six-year-old girl working eighteen-hour shifts in Bangladesh).

Convinced that I’m the world’s most avid Christmas fan? The only one who might challenge my is my mom. She would likely agree with all of the above claims, but she also has five nativity scenes in her living room alone!

I know, I know—the true meaning of Christmas is often as difficult to find as a Sony Playstation II on December 24. Having stood in line at Toys R Us, shopping for the my own little boy for the first time, I can attest that the shopping-cart-pushing masses were not singing "Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men." Yet, even in Toys R Us, I heard a new, soulful rendition of "O Holy Night" seeping from the ceiling speakers.

When Jesus came to earth some two millennia ago, everyone was busy and almost no one was paying attention. Still, word leaked out—"For unto you is born this day a Savior.…" And I’m continually amazed that in the midst of the season’s most secular hubbub, the word is leaking out.

So I say, go ahead. Enjoy Christmas in all its gaudy glory. But please, listen—the word is getting out.

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