What if, every day for the next year, you woke up with the perfect Christmas mindset, excited to begin the day, come what may?
As the holiday season descended this year, I made it a point to grab hold of the reason behind it and truly partake and enjoy the holidays. “There’s no way,” I told myself, “that I’m having another year where I ‘miss Christmas’.” I look back on the last month and I realize that I succeeded. I did not “miss Christmas” this year, but instead thoroughly experienced it—the good and the bad. There were plenty of laughs and lighthearted moments with family, memories made, traditions created or upheld, Christ glorified in worship and contemplation, spiritual highs, deep prayers…and likewise tears of pain. Pain at hearing of a terminal diagnosis and the lost time and opportunity that such things portend, pain at learning of those around us who were suffering whom we were powerless to help, pain at seeing the fallen state of the world contrasted against the colorful lights that mark this season.
Stark reminders that despite how glorious a season that it can be, it is at its heart a commemoration of a desperate pregnant couple trying to find shelter for the night as their child is born…and then the celebration of the birth itself and the kingdom that was sure to come. We often miss that, though: that there is a great deal of suffering to be had in advance of the Kingdom of God. We are, after all, exiled here on this fallen planet, and our holiday bliss is but a diversion from that. Far be it for me to condemn the festival bliss after my thorough glutting, however, I will do no such thing.
For even if there is discrepancy, even if the hymn’s proclamations that “all is calm, all is bright,” does not currently reflect reality, the words of another hymn ring out, “God is not dead, nor doth He sleep,” and I remember the words of Fred, Ebeneezer Scrooge’s nephew, in A Christmas Carol, “though [Christmas] has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”
I’ll take that one step farther. I’d like, in the next year and years to come, to make a practice of celebrating Christmas each and every day.
I’ve never been good at wrapping presents, not until this year that is, though I still don’t think that my skills are anything to write home about. The switch came at a family birthday party early in December when the Winter family’s collective skills were on display and it dawned on me that I really, really sucked at wrapping to the point that my family members always knew which presents I had gifted based on the wrapping alone. This, I decided, was unacceptable, and I set forth to better myself.
With a great deal of practice as well as emotional support from my wife, I was, by the holiday proper, able to wrap a gift that was virtually indistinguishable from everyone else’s, except for, perhaps, the added flair of the ribbons and bows that I began to add to my gifts in an attempt to stretch my talents that much more. It was Christmas, after all, and I wanted to be jolly.
Throughout this process, I began to contemplate the very nature of gift giving, and felt rightly embarrassed by my past gifts and their slap-dash “get it done” style of wrapping. While the contents of a package may be the gift proper, the wrapping tells a story all its own. Certainly the paper is torn away in a fraction of the time that it took to set it in place, but that ephemeral nature of the wrapping itself is just an extra way of communicating to the recipient that they matter, and that you took the time to do things correctly.
Consider the well-wrapped Christmas present: it is placed in a box or other container that somehow conceals its true nature. If it is light in weight, perhaps an object is added to the parcel to disguise that aspect as well. It is meticulously wrapped, each fold calculated and carefully laid into place. The entire package is deliberately crafted with presentation in mind, created to be destroyed in but an instant: in an exhilarating rush of anticipation to discover the contents. And then?
Surprise? Joy? Wonder? My wife seems to have mastered the ability to get those reactions from me with her gifts. Seeing that reaction on her face, or on the face of another loved one makes me consider how God must have felt seeing Adam take his first steps into Eden. Likewise watching a loved one try something out for the first time, particularly if the loved one is a child: how must God have felt knowing the joys that reality contained, and seeing His children go out and experience it?
What about the opposite emotions? The disappointment? The feigned excitement or gratitude? What about the confusion at a gift that has no readily apparent purpose? I’m sure we’ve all had that experience at one time or another. I can certainly say that in many of those instances, however, the real utility or thought behind such gifts have become apparent as time went on. I’m sure that God has given us all gifts like this, ones that we are unable to appreciate or see the use of in the moment: spiritual deserts that seem unending but hold opportunities for growth and transcendence. Shoddily-wrapped seasons of melancholy that burn off the dross of our hearts to make us more like Christ. Disappointments, ornately decorated boxes with nothing inside that make us reconsider whether our priorities are rightly placed to begin with.
What kinds of gifts are we to those around us? How often do we have the means by which another might be delivered from some hardship, but we do not offer it? Something that I realized over the course of this holiday season is that opportunities to be a gift to other people are a dime a dozen, it is just that the Christmas Season makes them all the more apparent. Moments of felt need are much more noticeable when all around is “cheery and bright.” I wonder how many of these moments I don’t notice during the year because my mind is on the path ahead instead of the world around. I wonder how many I flatly ignore.
I wonder at the number of times that I have withheld grace from others, focused too much on my own pride and satisfaction instead of the circumstances, whatever they be, that has lead to an unpleasant encounter.
A refrain I found myself uttering over and over again throughout the month of December, and particularly the week of Christmas itself was “it’s Christmas!” In excitement at times, yes, but also as a way of shrugging off a perceived slight or defusing an argument. “It’s Christmas,” had a way of making the world seem a little brighter, and lightening my heart just enough to remain charitable to those around me even if internally I was seething.
With that refrain, I mosied through the holidays with glee, though this year was actually the busiest I’ve ever had. It didn’t matter what responsibilities, hustle and bustle, or obligations were on the table. It didn’t matter the workload or stress levels. “It’s Christmas,” and so it goes, no harm, no foul.
In the midst of all of this, I realized that one best experiences the joy of Christmas by helping others to experience the joy of Christmas. By realizing your role as a gift to others as a disciple of Christ. As God brought his son into the world as a free gift to humanity, one must follow in His stead and become a free gift to humanity, and therein discover the joy of the Christmas season.
And how joyous a season it was: the best in a long time. There were moments throughout the season wherein Heaven and Earth seemed to intersect, where the hopes of the best Christmas carols rhymed with reality. I’m honestly not sure that mankind can sustain such joy in our present fallen state. We must cherish the moments that we do have, because they are foretastes of Heaven, and they always end. Just as Christmas ended, bringing with it a lingering sadness, because, just like my wedding, it was so wonderful that it made everything else seem lessened by comparison.
Dopamine crashes are a hell of a thing.
In the wake of the holiday, reality sets in. That there were relatives at the celebration who would likely not be alive next year, and that the time to invest in those relationships had slipped away, week after week, excuse after excuse. That there were likewise relatives present who, while not terminal, did show signs of age for the first time in your mind. Where had the time gone? The grim notion dawns that someday, you too will share their fate, and a new cast of characters will rise up to replace you. Good Lord, it’s the end of the year… January’s upon us. What is there to look forward to in January, or February for that matter? I’ve got to wait until next December to feel this all over again?
No, you don’t.
Because Christmas is just an excuse to be charitable, to be a gift, to get to know Christ more, to spend time with family, and invest in those around you. It’s an opportunity that we’ve made it extremely convenient to take advantage of because the whole world seems to stop the week that it comes around. There’s nothing special about the day itself. It has a sunrise and a sunset, weather patterns are what they are. The only thing different is that we treat it differently.
We celebrate the coming of Christ, the salvation of mankind, we proclaim cries for peace on Earth and good will to men (provided we’re not in traffic over the holidays), we adorn our homes in glittering lights, give gifts to one another, and allow ourselves to be given to festival bliss. But all of this holiday cheer and festive joy is but a scant reflection of Heaven and God’s glory, and there will be a day on which that joy will never end and the holiday will continue forever. For the professing Christian, however, that holiday can begin now. Because Christmas is just the beginning. It’s the coming of the Lord, and the beginning of Heaven on Earth. And that’s why we shouldn’t be sad about Christmas being over—if we’re truly celebrating, we will carry it on into the year ahead.
What if, every day for the next year, you woke up with the perfect Christmas mindset, excited to begin the day, come what may? What if you made the time to see that family member that’s on your heart, to reach out to that friend that you know is struggling? What if you asked yourself, every day, “whom can I bless today? What gift can I give?” What if you started each day with that cry in your heart, “it’s Christmas!” What if, when given the opportunity to be bitter, you instead proclaimed, “it’s Christmas,” and let the offense slide away? What if you kept the spirit alive until next December? How wonderful of a year could you have? How much a blessing could you be to those around you?
I confess, I’m writing this on December 29, and despite trying to keep this up for even a week, I’ve found myself stumbling. It’s not that easy to do, but I know it’s possible. I missed Christmas last year and the year before, and blamed it on my job, my schedule, everything but myself. This year, I told myself that I was going to capture the spirit of Christmas, and told myself almost every single day, “It’s Christmas,” for an entire month, and despite my schedule being busier than ever, I found that Christmas joy.
I want to try this crazy challenge. I want to live every day in the spirit of Christmas, being deliberate to consider how I can use my time, talent, and treasures in the new year. Try to ask myself each day, the questions that have been hanging on my heart: what shall I do now? To whom can I be a gift?
Try it with me.