My family decided to avoid the malls this holiday season and do most of our shopping via Amazon.com. It was my job to place the orders for pretty much my entire family—everything from the DVDs my brother and I were giving my parents to the books my grandma was giving my brother.

When I logged into Amazon to check the order a couple days after the items were supposed to arrive, I was met with a most unwelcome surprise: “None of the items you ordered will arrive before Dec. 25, 2008.”

Thinking about what it would be like to wake up Christmas morning to a Christmas tree devoid of gifts, I called Amazon’s 1-800 number. (By the way, that number—which is nearly impossible to find—is 1-800-201-7575. You may want to write it down for future reference.) It turned out that a couple of the items were out of stock, and, because Amazon was shipping everything together, they were holding the entire order. So I cancelled the two items and changed the rest to two-day shipping, guaranteeing that they’d arrive by Dec. 24.

Well, they didn’t. So Christmas came this morning, and there were far fewer gifts under the tree than there were supposed to be. I was upset at Amazon. And, although the rest of my family didn’t seem to mind, I couldn’t help but feeling like I ruined Christmas for everyone.

It wasn’t until we sat down to Christmas dinner and my dad read a devotional that I realized how easy it is to get so caught up in materialism and gift-giving that we forget what we’re really celebrating: the truly amazing events that first Christmas morning.

“She looks into the face of the baby. Her son. Her Lord. At this point in history, the human being who best understands who God is and what he is doing is a teenage girl in a smelly stable. She can’t take her eyes off him. Somehow Mary knows she is holding God. So this is he. She remembers the words of the angel. 'His kingdom will never end' (Luke 1:33).

“He looks like anything but a king. His face is prunish and red. His cry, though strong and healthy, is still the helpless and piercing cry of a baby. And he is absolutely dependent upon Mary for his well-being.

“Majesty in the midst of the mundane. Holiness in the filth of sheep manure and sweat. Divinity entering the world on the floor of a stable, through the womb of a teenager and in the presence of a carpenter. She touches the face of the infant-God. God came near” (Max Lucado. Grace for the Moment. 2006, pg. 386).

Sure makes some late-arriving Christmas gifts seem pretty insignificant, doesn’t it?