My favorite thing about Christmas
A couple of years ago, I was asked what my favorite thing was about Christmas. After giving it some thought, I answered that it was the fact that Christmas makes people kinder, makes them better and more human, just by drawing near.
Every Advent, as Christmas approaches, I see many, many people routinely giving alms for the poor in public. I cannot think of another time of year where this happens. Or, at least, not on the same scale as it does when Christmas is coming. I’m thinking of an army of people ringing bells in front of stores with small red kettles being filled with money that will go to see to the needs of the poor. And people just walk by and drop money in the bucket without anyone even having to ask. Many times, the only words spoken are “Merry Christmas!” It’s rather extraordinary when you think about it, really. But we think nothing of it when it happens. It just reminds us that Christmas is coming.
Isn’t that marvelous?
It is also a time when people come together to provide necessities and toys for needy children. My maternal grandfather, God rest his soul, had a tradition of delivering a car full of toys to orphans every year as Christmas approached. I remember accompanying him on one of these expeditions to buy the toys when I was a kid.
It is filled with reminders of peace, goodwill, hope, and a weary world rejoicing, if we will only allow ourselves to hear them. And this is not just in peoples’ actions. For instance, though more modern, secular songs now fill the air, the old carols are still heard. Their message has not changed across the centuries. We can ignore it all if we wish, but it is still there nonetheless. I can think of no other time of year in this corner of the world where that message is sounded so ubiquitously.
I have heard and read accounts of war hostilities ceasing on Christmas Day. The World Wars and the American Civil War come to mind. If only for a day, Christmas meekly raised its hand and the mighty engine of war was made quiet. The wills of nations and the people who rule them, the vast sums of money both invested in and made by the enterprise of blood and steel, all gave way to Christmas. Such a seemingly small, small thing in comparison.
It didn’t even have to say a word. It just had to come. Simply by being there, Christmas transcended fathomless chasms of horror and hatred. People were reminded, if only for a day, that there was another world waiting to be chosen.
Such a seemingly small thing, Christmas. And yet no small thing at all.
And that, I think, is my favorite thing about Christmas. If we really, really think on that, we must, I think, believe in the miraculous. A Christmas miracle, perhaps. But maybe even more, if we dare to entertain the possibility. And I mean that Christmas itself is a miracle. The miracle of God with us in weakness, vulnerability, humility and poverty, yet amidst the singing of angels.