After the Sermon: Ecclesiastes 4:7-12

12/22/2025 | Will DuVal | The Antidote: God’s Cures for the World’s Contagions

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Welcome to the After the Sermon podcast where Pastor Will answers follow-up questions and we share your personal applications from the sermon for the benefit of the church. My name is Brian. I'm here with our lead pastor, Will.

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Merry Christmas. This is our last episode before the Christmas and New Year's holiday. So see you in 2026, God willing. Absolutely.

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We might do them with the ad next week.

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Yeah. Oh, that's true. Yeah.

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29th, maybe. I was thinking about that. I was like, are we going to still record? I'll be in the office, I think.

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Man, yeah.

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Keeping you out, we might. I don't

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Know. You'd be packing up the podcast gear.

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Yeah, it's

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True. Everybody will be, you'd be busy. Yeah. Take it off. Take it off.

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Yeah. We want to remind you with this podcast that sermons are not just a Sunday thing. So we had a handful of questions. First one is from Callie who wrote in digitally. Thanks for your question. She wrote in, "It was one of your resolutions at the beginning of 2025 that we strengthen our intentional inclusion and community cohesiveness at West Hills." Circling back to the need for community in this sermon, how do you perceive we as a church have grown in the last year in these ways? And what hopes/goals do you have for continued growth in the new year?

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Yeah. Thanks as always, Callie. Very thoughtful and a good chance to think back on, as she mentioned, just some of our New Year's resolutions this time last year. Wow, crazy. The year has flown by in so many ways. But thinking about that and even with naming some of those kinds of resolutions for us as a church and those kind of first, I guess it was the last sermon of 2024 and then January 3rd or whatever it was of this year, last year. And at that time, we really kind of thought and hoped that we were going to be breaking ground on this renovation and starting to move stuff in like June. And then obviously we still haven't now. And so I'm looking back and laughing and like kind of, "Oh boy, what's ahead of us?" Because everybody told us from the start of the project was going to take longer than we thought costs more than you think and all that.

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But yeah, just with, by the time getting everything we were supposed to get back from the architect and permits and this and that, July became August, became September. And I think by September was kind of when we made the call like, "Hey, the fall is the busiest season in the church with all the back to school stuff and fall festival night of thanks." And then you blink and it's Christmas. And anyway, we kind of just made that call like for our sake, for Westminster's sake, it does not make sense to try and push this move. Anyway, that's neither here nor there with the community other than to say this year, 2025, of kind of our intentional community and inclusion of folks into that, of every kind of folk into that, again, not making sure that it's not just our, let's say, young families who feel like it's a tight-knit community here because there's lots of folks like them, and we got a lot of young families, but the empty nesters and the young singles and the widows at the other end of the age spectrum, everybody feels like this is a place for me.

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  There's people here for me. I'm known and loved here. So all that to say, I think this year has ended up being probably more normal than we thought it was going to be this time last year, but I still want to take our question seriously and even without all of the upheaval and change that we anticipated that now is we're a week away from.

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  It's wild.

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  Yeah, it is. But there's still always that desire and calling to keep moving the needle, to keep raising the bar. And I do think we have, again, you can look at some of the quantitative metrics of, and I think we even listed in our annual report just a couple of weeks ago here, the percentage of our folks in a D group or a life group, a small group of some kind. And that's not to mention, I know participation in women's ministry has increased, participation men's ministry has increased. So many of the young adults, like so many of our kind of communities within the community, we're seeing more engagement. So I think the quantity thing is one side of it, but to Callie's question about how are we doing on community cohesiveness, I guess you'd really, to do a fuller diagnostic, you'd want to probably try and get even more of a gauge of the qualitative, some qualitative metrics.

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  And so I don't know, it's something that we have talked about doing more in the new year, actually in conjunction with the renovation of the move. We were just talking about that two weeks ago at our elders meeting, just to try and make sure that we're not slipping into just kind of sustaining things and pushing pause on kind of the life and growth of our church while we're out of the building. But no, we want to keep moving forward. We want to keep making sure we're, again, to go to the synergy point from yesterday, like we are working synergistically with what God is doing at our church and not just again, bringing new folk, but growing those who are here and challenging others and thinking and really raising that to consciousness for all of us here at our church that, hey, we're still on mission here in some ways even more so and moving forward.

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  And so yeah, immediately there are a number of questions that would come to mind for me that like we could ask and just send out a life giving community assessment survey to our people and say, "Hey, would you take five to 10 minutes to fill this out and probably get some really good data points on just questions like I feel known and loved here at West Hills. I feel known and loved, supported, I feel synergy. I feel some of those essays from the sermon yesterday, I feel that specifically within my small group.

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  If I missed two Sundays in a row, like I'm confident, someone would reach out to me. " Those kind of like a one to five, strongly disagree to strongly agree. I feel like it might be a good idea for us to do something like that just to, again, make sure, especially as we do shift out of the building and many of those small group ministries become more decentralized in the next year. But all of that to say, without some of those numbers to be able to show you right at hand and say, "See, hey, look, you're telling us that you feel loved and included and valued here and connected here." I really do. I mean, I think the fact that I really do, that I'm able to say, and maybe I should have stopped and even named this, said this in this army yesterday, but in the intro before we even read Ecclesiastes 40, I made the bold assertion that no one here at West Hills who is desiring and working toward and being thoughtful about how and who they're working toward community with, that no one who's truly seeking it out is going to come up short here at West Hills, that if you really are committed to being known and loved and being in community with others, it's not just a possibility for you here, it's going to ... I think the word I used was guarantee.

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  I can guarantee you as the pastor, we will find you folks to connect with and to go deeper with. And so I say that to say, the fact that I can make a bold assertion like that, I mean, that's not something that every pastor at every church can say.

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  There are plenty, plenty of churches out there where, I mean, hopefully amongst the leadership, there's the desire for that to be true, that anybody could walk off the street and say, "Hey, I just need community. I need people in my life. I need the love and care and support and synergy and satisfaction and joy and sweetness that comes with a relationship with others." I need that and that I think hopefully at any church, the desire would be that you could promise that person and say, "Yeah, we got that for you here. We got you covered. Let me help you find your people here." But I do not think that that's the case at every ... And again, sometimes that's a matter of, again, just resources. I mean, at a smaller church, you don't have all of the different options. I mean, if you're a church of 20 or 30 and everybody's wearing a thousand hats and just too busy already, or whatever it might be, you can't necessarily say to someone who maybe is needy and does need a lot of support at this stage of their life, you can't necessarily offer that.

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  At the other end of the spectrum, you got the big, big mega mega churches and at a certain point, I think it's probable that the inner circle of leadership there, it probably gets harder and harder to even have a gauge on the culture of your church on the ground level and what is that person's ... You almost need to do like a secret shopper kind of experience where you have folks come in anonymously and look for connection and what was their experience and kind of report back because it just, I think it becomes harder and harder to really gauge how welcoming, how hospitable are my people toward assimilating and unfolding into the life of the church, new folks and folks who maybe don't necessarily fit the mold quite as easily. And so yeah, all that to say, I feel like we're just so blessed to be in a sweet spot in the middle where I'm still at the point where I can really more or less know all of our members, know them well enough to have a decent gauge of when someone can ... And the small groups and thad with overseeing connections, assimilations and groups.

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  And we can usually do a pretty good job of saying, "Hey, we think that you'd really click well here or whatever." And again, we've got enough just different kinds of folks here that we may ... I'm sure maybe there's a type of person who would come in and just feel like a fish out of water in any of our small groups or with just not a friend to be had here, but I just think as the church grows, that's becoming increasingly not the case. And that's a beautiful thing when you just have ... Yeah, when you meet someone and like, "Who was I just talking to? " Oh, I know who it was. Yeah, just the other day, just talking to them for five minutes and just between some of the backstory, yeah, we met in the army and we were in that for 10 years and then got out and I'm thinking of all the folks in our church that have similar kind of backstory there.

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  And then just personality wise and demeanor and mannerisms and stuff, I'm like, "You remind me so much of this woman at the church. I think y'all hit it off like, let me introduce y'all." So yeah, I think it's all that to say, I think we do a really good job of this and I hope that that is others' experience as well. And quickly on Kylie's last question, what hopes or goals do you have for continued growth in the new year? Kind of said it already, but I really do. I really do hope and pray and expect, believe that in this year to come with, again, the flux and changes to come with the building and whatever else, I really do think that it's going to strengthen so many of those communities, the small groups and the men's ministry, the women's ministry, whatever. I think that because it makes you even more intentional about why we do what we do and where we do what we do and who's going to be on board for it.

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  And yeah, I think it will just be even more of a reminder, like I said yesterday, that the building is not the church, the people are the church and I think we're just going to experience that more and more in the year to come. So I'm excited for it, hope y'all are too. It's easy for me because there's a lot of the rest of y'all that are doing so much of the kind of heavy lifting with it, getting us settled in over at Westminster and then back and all that. But yeah, so appreciate those who are pitching in for that. But thanks Callie for the question.

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  And then I had a question regarding gospel friendships. I asked, do gospel friendships need to share affinity/hobbies to connect deeply? Aren't they my brother and sister sharing the deepest thing in common?

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  Yeah. Yeah. I like the question and I thanks for asking it, Brian. And I know just if you haven't listened to the sermon yet, I mentioned one or two kind of couples that came to mind for me that told me that they didn't feel connected here and part of the reason being in their case, that they were kind of just, in my opinion, trying too hard to connect with the wrong folks, either folks who ... And I mentioned, to your point, like different kind of affinity groups, hobbies, different interests, different phase of life. Like I mentioned a couple in their 50s or 60s, joining a life group with all young people and feeling like the fish out of water, hard to relate. And then I mentioned another couple that, yeah, we're just the traditional kind of nerds and trying to be friends with like the star quarterback and cheerleader from high school.

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  Now, of course, they're 15 years removed, but I mean, still, it's like you're very different people. That's not to say that you can't, like I said, be friends, be in the same small group, share that connection in Christ and faith, and it's not to say that that only gets you so far. I mean, like you said, that's the deepest connection you can share, but we still, unless you're going to sit around and pray together all day long, I mean, you still, you're going through life and you just, you're into different things in life. You got kids. We don't. You watch football. We don't. And so I think Christians are still humans. We're in the world, not of the world, but in the world, and that means we're going to be into different things. And so when we get done recording, I'm going to play volleyball today and a lot of my friends are folks that I just play volleyball with.

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  And a lot of that is just a product of the time that you spend together just doing things that you both love. And obviously, I mean, Jesus is not just one affinity or hobby in a list of others, and so certainly not at all trying to reduce him to that. But yes, absolutely, we come here every Sunday and Wednesday night and whatever else, and we share him in common, we share our love for him in common, and hopefully that love trumps our love for college football or Dungeons and Dragons or whatever, but those other things are still just a part of what makes up our, I think, unique kind of identity and kind of who we are and how God has wired us. And so they're less important, but still significant enough that ... Yeah, I think that typically, again, sometimes, yes, sometimes you absolutely see those, and I love it.

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  It makes it even cooler when you see like the 70 year old divorced woman kind of just randomly connect at the women's prayer event with the 30 year old with two toddlers who's married. And it's like, yeah, on paper, I mean, very different stages of life, whatever, but just like whether it's their personality, whether it's just whatever it might be, geography. I mean, back in the day, that's the one that probably suffers the most now, I think, and just put this on people's radar too, for whoever listens to this. That had a really cool ... I can't remember if it was his idea, but he definitely did it for me.

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  What if we plotted on a map, like a digital Google map kind of thing, everyone at the church, their home address so that people could just see like, "Yeah, who's in my neighborhood? Who's around the corner from me? " And what kinds of uses might that have when we're out of the building and organizing into small groups and doing neighborhood dinners to invite your neighbors, but doing it together in community, again, synergy. What can we do together better than we can do separate alone? And it could be intimidating to invite all your neighbors over for dinner and try and use that as evangelistic opportunities with them by yourself when you're the only Christian family on the block. But like when you can pull the neighbors from two streets over that also come to church with you and whatever, we've got a great example of that, the moppins and great houses and I can't remember who else does that with them, but they live next door to each other, actually just a couple streets over from me and they do a Tuesday night neighborhood meal and invite their neighbors over and have just used that as an opportunity to share the gospel, pursue just friendships with folks.

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  So I think those kinds of things are really cool. And obviously back in the day before cars and computers and all that, that was it, man. I mean, churches were neighborhood churches and

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  Those kinds of relationships and friendships were going to be way more geographically based. But bringing it back to your question, Brian, do our friendships in the church need to share those kinds of hobbies to connect deeply? I think the short answer is no, you can connect deeply. Do they need those kinds of overlap in hobbies and interest to connect shallowly? If you want to call it that shallowly. There's a way that I can connect with a fellow Memphis Grizzlies fan on a Sunday morning, like as soon as I see a visiting family and the eight year old kid has the grizzlies cap on, I'm like, "Oh man, I can talk to you for ... I know how we're going to spend the next 10 minutes. We're going to be talking about ... "

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  Makes sense.

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  But I think that there's a way that God uses that to make us feel at home, to make us feel connected,

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  Maybe not again on the deepest level of spiritual things, but in a still, nonetheless, beautiful and needed way, needed way where you feel seen and heard and shared, or whatever the adjectives might be, you feel connected and valued because others value what you value or at least are interested in. So yeah, all that to say, yeah, I think it's really cool when you can have the friends that ... And also too, I mean, some of the things like that for me, and I'm sure this is the experience in others, marriages as well, like my wife does not do sports. My wife, she doesn't play them, she doesn't watch them. So you think about something that I ... How many of my sermon illustrations? How much of my week am I going and playing? And when I'm taking my lunch break, watching clips and highlights and just a whole side of my life that she loves me enough that every once in a while she'll pretend to care.

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  So I think that obviously there's, to your question, there's room in the category for people connecting on much deeper levels, but then having their own thing and where, you know what, this is something that we don't share overlap in and that's okay. But yeah, when it comes to some of that, like I said, practical stuff, just like, "What's your idea of a good time?" And if you're going to be at a holiday Christmas party together, life group party and be just kind of shooting the breeze, chatting for an hour and a half, can you feel that time? I mean, you can talk about Jesus the whole time and he's worth it, but also there's other stuff that we connect over and so- Sure. Yeah. That's helpful. I think it's fun when you can make those ... And we enjoy making those connections. That's why we ask people at entry point, "What's your hobby?

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  What are you into?" Fun facts, those kinds of things that then we can try and connect them with. "Oh man, you're really into cycling. Like we've got here at these half dozen other guys I know at the church that cycle every day that maybe y'all could start a cycle club. "It's like it's part of community. So anyway.

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  Yeah. Thanks. And our last question comes to us from Sam. He writes," First, thanks for another good sermon, appreciate you. "So one Corinthians seven can be a challenging text to interpret and apply, and there is some disagreement on both among godly men, but I didn't agree with your interpretation and application of one Corinthians chapter seven, verse 11, whether looking at the verse itself or the context, especially verse 10 and verses 12 to 16, the weight of the text as well as the rest of scripture is against separation and divorce. I don't see a biblical category for a spouse saying two aren't better than one in our marriage. We don't have synergy, so we should separate. Also, while I'm not a Greek scholar, some quick internet research makes me wonder whether the Greek word for separate in one Corinthians seven verse 11, and you wrote the Greek word there.

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  I'm not going to try it. Charista. Christe. Means temporary separation, the modern English usage or divorce, which is how Jesus uses it in Matthew 19: six.

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  Yeah. So thanks, Sam. And let me just read first because I didn't read it yesterday. And again, this is a sub point of a sub point in the sermon, but let me read one Corinthians 7:10 and 11. You could go with the whole chapter for context, but 10 and 11 do seem in context to kind of stand alone as sort of practical words of instruction that Paul's giving the church in Corinth, the married people. He says," To the married, I give this charge and then parenthetically, not I, but the Lord. "This is actually, he specifies. This isn't just from me, what I'm about to tell you comes from God himself. The wife should not separate from her husband. So I mean, if I stop right there at the end of verse 10 for a minute, I absolutely agree with Sam when he says that the weight of the text as well as the weight of the rest of scripture is against separation and divorce.

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  I think he's definitely right about that, that I think the Bible is clear. Yeah, two are better than one. When God brings a union, a couple together, it's to have become one flesh, what God has brought together that no one tear us under.

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  So absolutely, and certainly when you talk about divorce, we know God hates divorce. Look at Malachi, I think it's four anyway or two, but just so many places, Matthew 19, and so many places where God makes it clear that he hates divorce, what I brought together, don't let anyone tear apart. But if we read on in verse 11, Paul says," So again, the wife should not separate from her husband, but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband and the husband should not divorce his wife. "So again, he brings it back to, " And the husband should not divorce. "So she shouldn't separate, divorce him, he shouldn't divorce her. And again, those are two different words, separate and divorce. So the husband should not divorce when it talks about separation, and I think you'd have to go into the whole Greco-Roman context and And the Jewish context of the legal system and wives really weren't even permitted to divorce their husbands.

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  It was the husband divorced the wife. So that's why Paul gave this instruction to the husband, don't divorce her, but to the wife, she should not separate from her husband. But again, if you look at that next phrase that he says in verse 11, "But if she does, she should remain unmarried." So again, now you're talking about a couple where we've decided we cannot make this work and we need to be and live separated. Again, in this case, with the legal thing, maybe some would say just because of the sort of patriarchal, misogynistic, whatever legal system back then, she wasn't allowed to divorce him, but if you fast forward to today's thing, if there are grounds for that separation in the first place, again, Paul's saying, "Don't be separated. Two are better than one. Don't be separated. But if you do, if you do have to, because you almost can't have this conversation without making a little bigger conversation." The Bible does give some categories.

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  Matthew 19 where Jesus talks about adultery and hearing later in one Corinthians seven, Paul's going to give a category for abandonment.

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  If your unbelieving spouse proves they're an unbeliever by abandoning you and giving up on the marriage, then you're no longer bound is what he's going to say to the marriage. So it's not fair that just because your partner gave up on the marriage and whatever, that now you're not allowed to enjoy the beauty of that to become one flesh and to being better than one and being remarried. And so in that case, Paul says, "Yeah, you can be remarried." Again, not that you have to. I mean, he says a number of times here, "It's better not to be married in the first place." I almost can't have this ... Try and answer the question without doing the whole first grand seventh. Better not to be married because then you can just be 100% committed to the Lord. But if you're burning with passion, go ahead, get married.

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  And then you go from there, it's better to stay married. But in cases of adultery, abandonment, many would say abuse is in there as well as kind of a form of abandonment when you've given up on the marriage and so egregiously broken, violated your marriage covenant that you've really essentially abandoned that spouse and that marriage, even while you're still maybe in the home with them or whatever. But that there are some of these categories, and like Sam said, pastor scholars are going to ... Christians are going to debate and disagree over where some of those lines are drawn.

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  But if we just go back to verses 10 and 11, wife should not separate, but if she does, she should remain unmarried. So here's why I said what I said about when I was in point number two of the sermon and talking about synergy and how some is greater than the whole of its parts. Hopefully you plus your spouse equals something beautiful and better than either of you individually. You make each other better. You bring out each other's strengths, help mitigate each other's weaknesses, all those things. But if not, and if you're at each other's throats and you just, you can't, or you're not, or maybe one of the spouses is just defiantly refusing to change or to do the work or whatever, to listen or even, or whatever it might be. Sam's point is he does not see a category biblically for Christians being separated is how I understand what he's saying, and certainly not divorced, that that would be better outside of, like he said, some of these exceptional adultery abandonment.

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  But short of that, where he's asking, where are you getting this idea of a category for it may be being better for Christian couples to be separated for a time? And I would say, yeah, here in 10 and 11, and specifically 11, wife shouldn't do it, but if she does, she should remain unmarried. So if you don't have those biblical grounds, and just because you do have biblical grounds for divorce, speaking of which doesn't mean you ought to be or have to be divorced, like just because your spouse does cheat on you, you can forgive and reconcile and stay with them. And that's best if, in most cases, if the person's truly repentant and they've seen the error of their ways, they want to make their marriage work like it's best to do that and forgive 70 times, seven times and all that.

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  But in a case where, short of that, we're not good together right now and we need to make some changes. And so is there a category for, we need to make a pretty radical change in temporary in the short term, i.e., One of us be removed from this situation, the house, let's say, and live somewhere else so we can get space and to not becoming one, like to Sam's paraphrase of what I said, where he said, "I don't think there's a category biblically for a spouse saying two aren't better than one in our marriage, so we should separate." And I would just disagree. I think that in verse 11, where it's saying a wife shouldn't separate from her husband, but if she does, and maybe because she has to, for the sake of the marriage, she should either remain unmarried and she should use that time to pray for her husband to change and to recommit to the marriage because it takes two to make it work and that way she prays for that and waits and longs and hopes for that so that one day we can have a real marriage again and in the meantime, we're not going to ruin each other's lives and everyone else's lives around us because that's what we do when we're together.

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  Or second, or else, and this is where I really, the thrust of my argument, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. So again, that is, to me, that's the category for the wife. It's better to stay together in the home as to become one and not be separated and work on it that way if at all possible. Absolutely, that's best. But if the situation is bad enough that she does need to separate from her husband, then she's going to do that while remaining unmarried. She's not looking to go and undermine her covenant relationship with this man to go and shack up with someone else. No, she's going to pray. She's going to, even if it's separately, we're going to work on myself for now and pray and hope and trust that you're working on yourself so that when we come back together, we pray that we can be better together, synergistic again.

  (39:11):

  And again, she's either going to do that and wait patiently pray or else be reconciled to her husband. Those are her two options now. If she is separated, the options are you're waiting and praying, or the other option is you are actively moving back toward one another and toward reconciliation because you're on that path. So that's how I interpret that, again, would have to do a much deeper study and treatment to get into kind of the word study that Sam's talking about with separation versus divorce and is it the same thing biblically and all that. But I mean, the fact that verse 11 is saying, or else be reconciled to her husband, I take that to mean that whatever the separation talked about in verse 10 is not divorce or else divorce is final. You're not at that point seeking reconciliation in the way that verse 11 describes there.

  (40:20):

  So that's where I get that category. And so yeah, as Sam said, different pastors and churches and Christians are going to treat that differently. I can say had a number of couples, not tons, but a few couples here at the church, again, some that have by God's grace, been able to do this more successfully than others where it's like, if we try and keep staying together right now, staying under the same roof, it's going to end really badly for the sake of the marriage, we're going to give each other some space. And again, it's a different thing, but it's even kind of related where in the first couple verses where Paul's talking about sex and he says, "You should be single, burning with passion, go ahead and get married, once you're married, you should have sex because it bonds you together and it's good for marriage." But if you need to take a break from that, mutually agree upon it for just a time so that you can pray and then come back together.

  (41:38):

  I think it's, again, related to that where that's kind of the positive side of like, here's something positive that God's given you in your marriage for bonding you together that you ought to be doing. When you get to verses 10 and 11, I think Paul's thinking more about the negative side of like, when marriage is so bad that it's like for us to keep trying and doing what we're doing more right now, it's probably going to end in death or divorce for somebody because it's so bad. Then at that point, like something's got to change. So let's give each other some space, maybe even, and that could be separate bedrooms, that could be separate, whatever, but let's give each other space and then again, time of that prayer and self-reflection and all that. And then we're seeking to come back together better than we were before different changed.

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  And so yeah, we've seen it happen, success stories here and yeah, so I guess I'll stop there, but I do appreciate the chance to, obviously I'm not going to go through all that on a sub point of a sub point on Sunday, but I appreciate the chance to reflect a little bit more on that. So yeah, thanks Sam.

  (43:12):

  And Sam had an application. He wrote, "So thankful the Lord has given me sharpening, synergistic, supporting Christian friends throughout my pilgrim journey, including at West Hills Church. I'm going to write one of them a thank you note today."

  (43:27):

  I hope that lots of folks did that. I encourage that. Who are those folks that God has brought into your life at just the right time that make you better, that encourage you, that supports you, that bring out the best in you, that challenge you, that call you to the carpet when you need, but just at the end of the day, make life sweeter and just like, man, and thank them while you still can. How many people just don't do that? And how many times do you hear people say in eulogies at funeral services or whatever, like, "I wish I'd gotten the chance to told him how much he meant to me or this or that. Do it while you can. " So yeah, what an encouragement to hear that from others like, "Hey, you really make me better and God is ... " You being in my life is just evidence of God's kindness and goodness and that's just, who's not going to be incredibly encouraged to hear that from somebody else.

  (44:48):

  So yeah, thanks Sam and thanks everybody and pray that the sermon helps you be all the more grateful and also all the more just hungry, desiring, pursuant of those kinds of close relationships going forward.

  (45:11):

  Yeah. We hope that this has been an edifying listen for you as you seek to be changed and to love God more as you apply God's word after the sermon. So go apply the sermon and continue to make disciples and Lord willing, we'll catch you next week/ 2026. Yeah. Thanks for listening.

  (45:28):

  Have a new year, Merry Christmas.