The Christmas wrapping has been torn off the presents. The needles from the pine tree are beginning to fall. Perhaps it’s just my imagination, but the holiday light displays seem to have a bit less glimmer than just a few days ago. Christmas Day has passed. Now upon us are the Twelve Days of Christmas, a tradition that’s been mostly lost.
Following weeks of preparation for Christmas Day, what happens now? For many, the time after Christmas is something of a letdown and disappointment. It often happens that the anticipation led to expectations that were far greater than the actual event. So it is that now many people begin to experience various sorts of depression and anxiety as we move past the festive day.
Perhaps we have Christmas Day all wrong. We anticipate the day itself. It becomes something of a culmination of our preparation. But isn’t it really a beginning?
On Christmas Day, we celebrate the birth of the Christ Child both in time some two thousand years ago as well as in our lives today. If the Christ is truly born in our lives this Christmas, then we are at a new beginning. From here, our task is to allow the energy which is the life of Christ to transform our individual lives as well as our world. It is precisely the energy of Christ’s presence in our lives which enables the song of angels to come to fruition: peace on Earth and goodwill among all people.
While it is true that the celebration of Christmas Day may not have been all you had hoped it would be, today is the opportunity to move past momentary disappointment and embrace the possibility of living in a fuller and deeper way. Today, perhaps more so than in times past, the world needs people who act with kindness, who live in hope, and who work to overcome oppression.
In these days after Christmas, it is our time to begin anew. Allow your heart to be filled with joy and share that joy with others. In that way, Christmas is forever changed from just one holiday to being a way of life.
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