Christmas

Warning: you may not like what I have to say.

So, we are going out of town this Christmas to spend it with John's family.  As a result we have decided to not get a tree this year and I am very minimally decorating the house.  Because of this I feel a bit enlightened.   It seems almost crazy and ridiculous to me now that we spend most of November and December cramming in this celebration of Christ's birth.  I realize some if it is not focused around that but truly what the "season" is about is just that - the celebration of his birth.  Now wouldn't it make more sense to be celebrating this event all year long?  Shouldn't we be reflecting and practicing Christ like behavior all of the time - not just at Christmas.  We adorn our homes, we gather with people we don't see that often.  We walk over to the neighbors house with a token gift and chat for awhile.  We shower our loved ones with gifts and send cards to people far away.   We bake cookies and share them, we give to the needy, we open our homes and welcome whoever we can squeeze in....and most of the time we do it with a smile on our faces.  We feel good about giving.... giving time, giving talent and giving treasure.   Can you imagine our world if we operated all of time this way?  Maybe if we spread it out a bit we wouldn't feel so stressed during a time we should feel refreshed.  I think we would all learn to like each other a bit more and the idea of world peace would not seem so much like a wish but more like a possible reality.  Don't you think that is what Christ would want?  Don't you think that is what He intended?  Surely he did not want us to only act this way for 2 months out of the year.  He brought us a "get out of jail free" card and gave us a clean slate, perhaps we should start playing the game of life with our hearts and not our heads.  

I have not sent out our Christmas cards yet and I might just wait until June because Christmas should be merry every single day of the year.