So, it’ll be December 26th in a few hours, and Christmas will officially end. And before that happens, I just want to say a couple things.
My family and I are not Christian. We actually don’t follow any religion really. But we do celebrate Christmas. And not just as an excuse to get presents. Were not the only non-Christian family that celebrates this holiday. It draws people from all walks of life to it.
How? What is there to celebrate if you don’t believe in the Birth of Christ.
Well here’s what I do know. In 1914, Christmas Eve, English and French troops on the Western Front began singing Silent Night. They were cold, miserable, and homesick, and they wanted to feel that, in some small way, they were home again. However, something strange happened. Across the no man’s land, the same song was heard in German.
The enemy was singing as well.
The next day, Christmas Day, German, French, and English troops crawled from their foxholes and greeted each other. Not as different races or nationalities, but as people. They laughed, sang, played sports, and celebrated Christmas with the people they had sworn to kill.
The respective Governments had to almost completely replace the men at that front, as they found themselves unable to fire on each other the next day.
That is what I celebrate. Christmas isn’t about giving gifts, it’s not about the trees, the lights, the food and sweets. Christmas is the time of year we smile a little more, give a little more, and laugh a little easier. Christmas is about people. It’s about us. For a few days we are the people we always wanted to be.
And it feels good! Giving feels good. Seeing a face light up opening a present. Helping someone up when they fall. Teaching. Giving. Loving. That’s what Christmas means to me.
It’s… it’s a miracle you might say. And the more it happens, the more you want it to happen. You’ll want it to happen over and over again. Christmas is a time when we can be better people. And, if you let it, not just for one day. That’s what we need to keep with us. The little miracle that we can make happen over and over if we just let it.
Merry Christmas everyone. And have a truly happy New Year.
