Looking Up – Extending Christmas
Dear Hope Church Family,
The weeks after Christmas are always low ones for me. I’ve learned to anticipate the battle just to function and engage in any meaningful way with family and friends. I think it’s partly indicative of the fact that I’ve let my body’s rest and work cycle get unbalanced, too busy to rest well in the weeks leading up to Christmas, trying to pack too many good things in. But I think it’s also revealing that I’m thinking wrongly about Christmas. I heard a word from Wilson last week that helped me reframe my thinking a little: Christmastide. This is the time in our liturgical calendar from Christmas until Epiphany (Jan. 6). It’s twelve days of Christmas (Ha! Maybe there’s more to the song than I knew!) It made me think that maybe part of the key to my post-Christmas slump is to celebrate all of Christmastide rather than just Christmas Day. How might you keep the celebration going? Leave the tree up. Keep the carols playing. Take a drive to see the lights again. Pull out a nativity set with young children and let them tell you the story. Paint a Christmas picture or watch whatever Christmas movie you haven’t squeezed in yet while munching on sugar cookies. Take time each day to meditate on the fact that the Light of the World has come and the darkness cannot overcome His Light!
Sarah Beam