Keep Christmas with you

If you love Christmas as much as I do, Boxing Day brought both good news and bad.

The good news? Christmas was yesterday.

The bad news? Christmas is 364 days away.

Perhaps that’s my greedy side speaking, the side that feels like Christmas is over once the last present is unwrapped. But as I get older (and as I continue to watch all those heartfelt Christmas specials), I’m learning that’s not the case. Christmas doesn’t end when the presents are unwrapped. Christmas isn’t really about presents at all.

I know it’s easy to get that impression. You can turn on the TV for five minutes or venture into a shopping mall and come away convinced that, as Lucy Van Pelt once said, Christmas is a “commercial racket run by a big Eastern syndicate.” And I’m not about to deny there’s a commercial element to it. Retailers make a killing at this time of year, there’s no doubt about it.

But Christmas isn’t just a commercial racket. Whether or not you believe that Christmas marks the birth of Jesus Christ, it is about so much more than adding to our collection of ‘stuff’.

Christmas is a time for giving, and happiness, and togetherness. It’s a time to completely set aside the pressures and hard realities of living in this world and to spend our time doing what we were made to do; simply to be together and to enjoy each other. Christmas is a time to gather with family and friends and to make sure each and every one of them knows how much you love and care for them.

And yes, sometimes that involves the giving of gifts. If I can bring a smile to a loved one’s face by handing them a big box with a bow on it, I’ll do it, but as a means to an end. It doesn’t really matter to me what’s in the box or how much it cost. What matters is the smile, the feeling involved. What matters is that I’m home for the holidays, with my Mom, with my Dad, with our pets, and we’re all safe and healthy and happy.

It’s easy to think that Christmas ends when the wrapping paper is thrown out, but I encourage you to consider the miracle of a world that is brought together once a year by the spirit of giving.

And I encourage you to do what you can to recreate that miracle every day.