A Special Season

Pam and I spent nearly 12 hours on Saturday beginning the process of decorating our house for Christmas. A couple hundred dollars of new and replacement finery was purchased. Lights were strung on two natural trees and three fake ones, with more to come. Stockings were hung along the fireplace mantle. Candles were attached to the sills of twenty four windows, this year’s versions equipped with a timing device that switch them on simultaneously at dusk. Three holly trees in the front of my house, along with a lighted wreath hanging on our front door are also hooked up to a dusk-sensing timing apparatus which cuts them on at sunset and then shuts them off at midnight without assistance from any living thing. As I watched my home flicker to life a few minutes ago it occurred to me that the amount of electricity that these lights will burn over the next four weeks would probably power a water filtration system in some third world hellhole for an entire year. But this type of thinking assumes that happiness is a finite commodity and that joy is a zero sum game. If I allow myself to experience joy then that means that somebody else somewhere must die from cholera, a pointless and juvenile notion. So...I will feel no guilt for the warm glow that permeates my home. But, I will wonder why. Why do we do this? Why do we insist on decorating our homes with relics so shot through with nostalgia? Why do we go to such great lengths to conjure up this Christmas feeling?

My pastor today attempted an answer, suggesting that the reason we all long for the Christmas spirit, is because something in us has a sense that the the reconciliation, goodwill and renewed brotherly love that so often accompanies this season offers a glimpse of what the world would look like if it actually was the Kingdom of God, and if Jesus really was the king of our hearts. He might be right. 

All I know is that whenever Christmas comes around, I feel compelled to be a better man. Sure, I shouldn’t need seasonal inspiration for this project, but too often I do. I get sidetracked by the business end of life and drift away from goodness. I don’t mean to suggest that by drifting away from goodness, I suddenly become bad, rather I become distracted by my own needs, and in the process become blind to the needs of others...and left unattended this blindness gets awfully close to bad. But at Christmas, I start to once again see the people who are struggling. I start to notice the people desperate for a Christmas miracle, instead of the ones looking for a sale on David Yurmin bracelets. Once I begin seeing them again, I’m reminded of my great good fortune. In them, I see the exhausted carpenter and his teenage wife, and I suddenly long to be the owner of an inn with vacancies. It’s at Christmas when I start looking around for ways to be a blessing with greater urgency and intention. In the process, my mood lifts, my spirits improve, my aspirations elevate to something more noble than self interest. 

Many things are responsible for my heightened mood. It can be something as simple as a carol, or the sound of the Salvation Army Bell. It might be the sight of a young couple wrestling with a toddler, trying to get that first picture with Santa. Or...it just might be the glow of the 1950’s style lights on the hollies out front, or the soft yellow glow of candles in my windows. 

But, anything that turns me outward towards the world and away from my own narrow pursuits is a good thing. And if it’s the decorations we haul down from the attic every year, then....deck the halls.