Changes for Christmas

    Christmas time offers an opportunity to meet together as families and loved ones for the celebration of our Savior’s birth. This birth is significant because of what the Savior did for you and for me. I am especially grateful that because of Jesus Christ, I can repent and change from mistakes I have made. I am grateful for His promise found in Doctrine and Covenants 58:42: “Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more.” I know that I need to be forgiven daily and know that the Lord can and does help me in my efforts to change.

    In listening to this year’s First Presidency Christmas devotional, there was a reference to last year‘s First Presidency Christmas devotional where Elder Gong referenced Charles Dickens classic novel,  A Christmas Carol. I found it interesting how there was an invitation to think about Scrooge not as the curmudgeonly man who insisted on people working on Christmas Day, but rather thinking about the changed Scrooge; the one who remembered Christmas, who raised Bob Cratchett’s salary, who purchased the enormous Christmas turkey and made an effort to uplift and strengthen those around him the rest of his days. Ebeneezer Scrooge was a changed man by the end of his story. He had repented and become a better version of himself.

    In hearing about Scrooge’s transformation, I was reminded of another beloved Christmas classic, namely Dr. Suess’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas. There are many similarities in these two stories. The Grinch is like Mr. Scrooge, in that he does not care much for Christmas. The Grinch even takes his dislike for Christmas to a whole new level in striving to prevent Christmas from coming at all. However, the Grinch is a changed character at the end of the story, who’s heart had grown 3 sizes. He brings back the Christmas presents and even cuts the roast beast at the Whoville Christmas feast. Like Scrooge, he has repented and changed. 

    So why is it that when someone is referred to as a “Scrooge” or “Grinch” it is usually associated with being grumpy or selfish or “anti-Christmas?” In my personal reflections on the matter, I was drawn to Elder Holland’s BYU devotional from 2009 titled, “Remember Lot’s Wife.” In that talk, Elder Holland said the following, 

“[L]et me pause and add a lesson that applies both in your own life and also in the lives of others. There is something in us, at least in too many of us, that particularly fails to forgive and forget earlier mistakes in life—either mistakes we ourselves have made or the mistakes of others. That is not good. It is not Christian. It stands in terrible opposition to the grandeur and majesty of the Atonement of Christ. To be tied to earlier mistakes—our own or other people’s—is the worst kind of wallowing in the past from which we are called to cease and desist.

Let people repent. Let people grow. Believe that people can change and improve. Is that faith? Yes! Is that hope? Yes! Is it charity? Yes! Above all, it is charity, the pure love of Christ. If something is buried in the past, leave it buried.”

    Perhaps, this is lesson to be learned from Mr. Scrooge and the Grinch. When someone repents and changes, I can do better to remember them for the changes they have made. I am certainly hopeful that this is how the Lord will view me. Merry Christmas 2024!