Some years, I think, I’m just going to forget about Christmas preaching altogether, because I don’t think I should allow this tradition to effect what I’m going to preach.  I don’t have to preach Christmas messages.  I don’t feel pressure coming from our congregation to do that.  So why do I go ahead and preach them every year?  I may have not preached them one or two years out of twenty-eight, but why so infrequently?  I preach every year on Christmas for several reasons.  One, I like the theme.  It’s a great theme that is worth preaching on every year.  Something about the incarnation is found in big chunks of the Bible.  Two, at Christmas time, I want our church to be thinking right about Christmas.  If I don’t preach a Christmas sermon, I think it is more likely that we won’t think the correct way about Christmas.  There are many different distractions from the right thinking, even more than there are in other parts of the year.  Three, because I am thinking about Christmas, as a result of it being Christmas time, I think of Christmas sermons I would like to preach and it is easy.  Four, I do think that we might have someone extra come in to our church at this time, so I preach it with them in mind.  The last is not a main reason for doing it, but it comes to mind, because I would want a visitor to hear it.