Christmas Every Day

I was driving around tonight doing some Christmas shopping, listening to some Christmas music and drinking hot chocolate with peppermint. Doing all these things to conjure up that "Christmas feeling" that is so wonderful when it comes on but is often elusive.

It got me thinking, why is it that we love Christmas so much? Why did Elvis Presley sing "why can't every day be like Christmas"? For me, the Christmas season brings to mind things I've enjoyed during past Christmases. Game nights with family or friends, music, time off to relax and read or play, getting presents, taking fun trips, eating good food and a number of other things. It's a time of year when, at least in theory, everyone is more cheerful, more giving, and more patient with each other.

But we can only keep the act up for so long. Making special meals takes time and effort and often more money. We have to go back to the daily grind of work, so that free time for relaxing and reading vanishes quickly. We aren't very willing to keep buying presents for each other on all the other days of the year. There are video games to buy for ourselves, after all.

In some ways, the Christmas season is like taking a few days or weeks and living in denial of our natural, selfish tendencies. But in another way, it foreshadows, just a tiny bit, what God has in store for those who love and trust him.

A time will come when evil and selfishness are completely removed from our thoughts and actions. God will completely and overwhelmingly satisfy our every need and desire and so we will have no reason to live selfishly. Instead, we'll spend our time for all of eternity selflessly loving God and loving others, which will only increase the excitement and joy we each experience!

The Christmas season foreshadows a time when our lives will be alien by comparison, radically different from what they are now. Every day will be an amazing experience. But it won't be like Christmas. It will be even better.