Beyond a day

The older and wiser I become, the less I worry about. There was a time in my life when I grew incredibly anxious over December 25. In elementary school I got real worked up about the gifts my parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles had gotten for me. In middle school my concern shifted to the gifts that I would buy for my friends, trying my hardest to calculate a gift just nice enough to look good, but that did not cost a great deal more than what they were spending on me. In high school I worried about what I would wear to the big family dinner; I had an innate desire to impress all of my cousins who lived a couple of hours, but what seemed like a whole world, away from me in Saginaw. I had to be sure that my attire matched the lifestyles of the rich and famous persona they viewed my family and I as for a number of reasons. DRAMA! A comedian I saw perform, once joked that a drunken man must have come up with Christmas and the rest of us were idiots for following suit. Really, what kind of sense does it make to take a tree that naturally grows in nature, cut it down, put lights on it, and put it inside your house and then put big socks (stockings) on your fireplace? Not to mention that it is ludicrous to feel that on Christ’s birthday, all of us should get gifts. I don’t know about you, but that just would not fly at my birthday party.

Around age 17, my parents began to realize the fixation we held on the world’s idea of how we should spend this precious day in the life of every Christian. This year I am proud to say that my entire family was freed from the commercial traditions surrounding Christmas. We recognize the significance of this event in our lives, the day our Savior was born. But we are more focused on the advent, the second coming of Christ our Lord, and how we live our lives in preparation of this, than we are on a single day in time.

During this time of year we have great temptation to get caught up in tradition and singular events. While skimming the various statuses of my facebook friends, I came across many proclaiming resolutions for the New Year. A few even talked about relationships they were leaving in 2007 because they were not worth bringing into the New Year. But who says we have to wait until a big silver ball drops in Times Square to change our lives? Now is the time to live your best life, to be the best you.

What would happen if we looked past the traditionalism and trivialness of events and lived our lives in this and every season based on true principles? What would happen if we forgot about the tree and gifts and spent our time worshipping God and learning to be more Christ-like at Christmas? What would happen if we stopped waiting on the world to tell us that it was okay to make a change, and realized that each new breath we take is a new beginning and a chance to do better? Certainly we would not see the world that we see today. A world where the Christmas and New Years season brings on more divorces, suicides, and bankruptcies, than any other time of the year.

I encourage you to join me in living beyond the day. I will still attend a New Year’s celebration at my church next Monday and I enjoyed every morsel of ham on the 25th, but I realize that real celebrations must first take place in my heart and mind. The party and fixings are simply outward expressions of what I already feel and know to be true inside. I am living out the true meaning of this season, every day of my life.