Happy New Year to you! I hope that you enjoyed a wonderful Christmas season, and that this new year of 2025 is off to a wonderful start for you and for all whom you hold close. As I come to this pondering in what is now the end of the third week of January, I have been quite struck these days at how many Christmas decorations – lights, wreaths, and beautiful artificial trees – I am still seeing festively aglow. On the one hand it seems a little strange and out of season to see Christmas stuff still up in late January! At the same time, however, I find myself wondering what might be moving folks to leave their decorations up for all to see, well-beyond the holiday season. Are they just too busy to take them down? Or might they be trying to send a message? Who knows for sure, but I do know my wondering has gotten me pondering.
One of the joys of the Christmas season is that it tends to inspire in so many a special spirit of generosity, kindness, gentleness, and compassionate concern, not even just among family members and loved ones, but also towards the least, the lost, and last. There is something about Christmas that prompts many to give to the less fortunate, the neglected, and often forgotten ones of society in the spirit of the season. From toys, gloves, hats, and socks on the Church Giving Tree to generous financial donations to agencies and programs that provide food, shelter, and services to the underserved, the Spirit of Christmas tends to bring out the best of us in our desire to gift and bless one another. Such kindness, given and received, undoubtedly stirs hope in the hearts and joy in the spirits of both the giver and the gifted.
All my recent sightings of Christmas decorations, well after the season has ended, have helped me to realize once again that the Spirit of Christmas – kindness, generosity, gentleness, and compassion - is not just for a day or just for a season. It is for every day and for every moment of every day. It is a way of living and being fully alive in the Spirit of Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, God-with-us, in every age and season of our lives.
While Christmas decorations surely celebrate and beautifully underscore the spirit of the season, they would also lose their special evocative impact on our souls and spirits if they remained so visible and prominent throughout the entire year. Be that as it may, it is also important to remember that whenever the Christmas decorations are taken down and put away, that the gifts of kindness, generosity, gentleness, and compassionate concern are not to be put away with the boxes of ornaments, lights, and treasured creches until next year! These special, spirit-filled gifts of the season are meant to be continually given and opened up, shared and enjoyed, and lived out among all of us as the beloved of God in all our days.
In a beautiful yet simple piece, the theologian Howard Thurman speaks eloquently of the enduring and ongoing work of Christmas, a work that indeed goes on - always and forever - way beyond its ‘official’ annual season of celebration in time unto eternity.
The Work of Christmas
When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with their flocks,
the work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the people,
to make music in the heart.
Pope Francis has designated this year of 2025 as a Jubilee Year of hope and called all of us to see in Christ, the Son of God who was born in time for us and gave himself up for us, the doorway into a love that is kind, generous, gentle, and compassionate. This Christ-love is God’s gift to us, not only at Christmas but always, and this is the love we are called to share in the power of the Spirit. Indeed, this is the love that will bring hope and healing to the lost and to the broken, nourishment and encouragement to the hungry, freedom to the captive, and new life, peace, and joy to the world. And so my hope and my prayer this month: may the love of God in Christ be the gift we continue to let ourselves receive so that we may always seek to be kind, generous, gentle, and compassionate towards self, neighbor, stranger, and all creation… and so make the work of Christmas our own in the grace of this Holy Year!