More Christmas
Once upon a time “The Twelve Days of
Christmas” was more than a reallllly long song. There were actually 12 days of
Christmas. Each day was often
accompanied by traditions and celebrations of their own. If one included Christmas Eve then you actually
had 13 days of Christmas, but folks get all antsy about things that come in
13. (I will save my pro-thirteen rant
for another day) Personally I think we
have really missed out on something great by only having one day of
Christmas.
In the spirit of
full disclosure I have to admit to loving Christmas. I love the music. I love the
decorations. I love the food. I love the traditions. I insist on keeping the tree up at our house
until well into January, in fact I get all melancholy when we take it
down. Christmas is great, why can’t we
have 12 days of it?
Every year we
string lights, put up trees, and deck the halls all to celebrate the day of the
Christ-Mass. And then in a blink, after
weeks of preparation, it’s over. I once
knew a woman who had her whole house decorated in Christmas themed rooms all
year long. If you asked her “why?” she
would laugh and tell you that she wondered why everyone didn’t do it. Well, it’s a good question. Why don’t we decorate for Christmas all year
long? Imagine our world if we were all
decked out for the baby Jesus 365 days of the year. It sounds a lot brighter and cheerier. Maybe all that Christmas good spirit would
wear thin after a while. Maybe we would
all get tired of flashing lights and manger scenes. Maybe we would sit around and long for a
color scheme other than red and green.
My friend in South Carolina who had the Christmas house never seemed to
get tired of it.
Maybe what we ought
to do isn’t decorate our house with Christmas good cheer all year long. Maybe we ought to decorate our lives with
Christmas all year long. Maybe the world
would be made a better place not through tinsel but through compassion, not by wrapping
but by charity, not by pine trees but by joy and wonder. So, we don’t deck our halls with boughs of
holly from December to November, but maybe, just maybe we ought to have a
little more Christmas in our hearts in July, and September, February, and
April. Maybe this is how a world gets
decorated properly. Maybe that is how
peace on earth and goodwill toward men get’s actually accomplished. That… and more Christmas cookies.
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