It’s Christmas time, right? So that means lots of love and family and service and charity. It’s that time of year we all magically become selfless and become the way we “should be.” I love Christmas. Please don’t mistake my tone for complete pessimism; I just can’t help but think about how the tradition of Christmas (despite its over-commercialization) is that one time of year when we all forget our usual selves and become…something different. We all become a little nicer. We all become a little more loving. We all become a little more selfless.
I think it’s wonderful. I think it’s incredible to see a whole community come together for a common purpose. But it’s after Christmas that I really wonder about. After all the presents are opened and the sugar-comas have passed, we kick our extended families out of our homes, make our never-to-be-fulfilled New Year’s Resolutions, and “begin anew” the incoming year. We do this all in hopes of starting with a clean slate and of finally get back to our lives. We go back to school and work and think, “Well, that was a nice holiday season.”
And that’s it. Christmas is over, and it’s about 50 weeks until the next one.
I believe that Christmas is more than that, as I am sure most of you believe as well. But we (me included) get stuck in this routine cycle where we move from one phase to the next in our lives. Get this one done so I can move on to the next. Even though we may feel the so-called Christmas Spirit, we stress ourselves out over buying the presents, sending out the Christmas cards, baking the holiday goods…and after all of that stress, we take a big sigh of relief once Christmas has finally ended. And yet, we immediately look forward to it the following year.
I propose we do as we have been instructed time and time again—to carry that Christmas Spirit with us the whole year through. Now, that’s not to say that we should have a decked-out pine tree in our living room year-round or that we should only fill our wardrobe with red and green. Rather, I mean that we should take those things that mean the most to us during the Christmas season—such as family and giving—and we should make it our goal to foster them the whole year through.
It’s a tacky notion, perhaps, and we’ve heard it a thousand times over…but that doesn’t make it any less significant. Rather than see the Christmas season as a phase of the year to pass through, see it as a learning opportunity—a time to practice selflessness and to improve our understanding of it.
We give and we give and we give all year round, but do we ever really enjoy our giving? Do we ever see the opportunity as a blessing rather than a burden? So this Christmas season, avoid trying to check everything off of your list and try, instead, to learn from what you experience.
