My youngest tells me that Christmas is over now.  Tomorrow will be a "normal" day rather than a holiday.  Who knows what this means to him but he is right.  Another season of hustle and bustle comes to a close with that sense of normalcy around the corner.  I am going to miss Christmas.  Let me even admit to a touch of grief over its passing.  There will be no more music of the season on the radio.  Count me as one of the odd ones that rather enjoys the songs.  People may return to being not quite as nice as they were the last few weeks.  Courtesy will go out the window along with our discarded trees.  The truth is all of the hectic pace of this last month pointed toward something grand.  There was a reason for our madness.  Now we simply resume the rat race with no purpose to it all.  Yeah, it all sounds depressing but reality often is just that. 

People really are at least a bit kinder during Christmas than any other time of the year.  To grin and bear it seems easier when you are into the celebration.  We speak of hope, joy, peace and love during Advent.  If only those qualities lasted us through the entire year.  I went to get some newspapers today.  One needs to be prepared and informed for the sales beginning tomorrow.  A single mother preceded me in line.  She told the cashier she awoke to find that a secret Santa left a ton of presents for her children.  Her eyes filled with tears while trying to express her emotion.  We usually don't do that nearly as much for the other eleven months of the year.  She was overcome with the reality that another person cared for her and her family.  That is the kind of difference Christmas makes.  That is one of the things I miss when we move past the big day.

We don't do too well at carrying over the spirit of the season.  Jobs, family, worry and the like once again dominate our world after the presents are opened.  This child named Jesus who is a focus of our celebration tends to be put away like our other decorations.  Those eternal truths such as hope and joy become as foreign to us as a language we cannot comprehend.  Yet if we could really grasp what these days are about then we would remember that He is always "God with us."  Our Savior becomes the Lord  revealing His authority over the stresses of the other eleven months. Jesus exists not just for the special but also for the normal.

People will probably ask you if you had a good Christmas.  That usually means did you get what you wanted as a gift.  Did you?  Or do you measure your holiday by what stuff was under the tree for you?  What we need is often what we fail to realize we want.  We need a little Christmas to get us through any day much less for a year.  Jesus provides the hope, joy, peace and love for normal days.  To have Him is to have all that He offers.  That is His incredible gift available to us as this year fades into the background.  It's ok to grieve the end of the season as long as we realize all of His presence through the year.  May we all learn to do just that.

Bro. Trey