Christmas Song Blog: Day 3 –Where Are You Christmas?

My world is changing; I’m rearranging. D oes that mean Christmas changes, too?

I used to think that if I didn’t dive into Christmas with the gusto of a little child, I was somehow being sacrilegious or not fully honoring the occasion.  I used to think that being sad on Christmas was somehow suggesting that the birth of our Lord and Savior wasn’t good enough for me.  Like what more do you want than the salvation of the human race?

Now I think my view on Christmas and how it changes can be summed up by a Mohammed Ali quote: “The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.”

Right now I know my world is changing and rearranging.  My understanding of Christmas is changing, and I won’t go so far as to say that it’s better or worse than my understanding used to be, but I will say that it is more powerful.  I know that Jesus’s birth didn’t wipe away all the sadness in the world.  I know that Jesus’s birth brought God on high down into the fullness of the human experience, and that in doing so, God accepted the entirety of what it means to be human, all of the ups and the downs, the joy and the sadness, the hope and the fear. I think learning that really freed me to experience Christmas more fully, because I am learning to seek God in the good times and the bad. And in looking for God in more places, I have learned to recognize God in more places.

This year when I ask, “Where are you Christmas?”  It’s not because I can’t find joy or hope or peace anywhere. It’s because in addition to those things, I am also looking to meet Christ in places I’ve never dared to look before. The process is not always easy or natural for me, but when I open myself to seeking the Christ child everywhere, that’s where I tend to find Him.