Christmastime

While I have always loved Christmas, I discovered something a few years ago that makes the experience sweeter and more enjoyable. I used to see Christmas Day as something we were all working up towards, i.e., this Christmas concert I'm attending is helping me get ready for Christmas Day, this trip to see the lights at Temple Square is getting me ready for Christmas Day... and then Christmas Day would come, and all day long I'd tell myself, "Savor it, savor it, this is what we've been prepping for all month long! Are you savoring it?!" It was exasperating. While there is build-up involved, I have recently decided to view the whole experience as Christmastime and not just Christmas Day .... those cliche phrases like, "the joy of the season" have so much truth to them. When I am pulling out the decorations I haven't seen since last year, that's Christmastime. When I am building gingerbread houses with my family, that's Christmastime. When I pick up Christmas stamps at the post office, when I plan the grocery list for the Christmas dinner I'm hosting, when I prep Gracie with a showing of Miracle on 34th Street so she can have a fun instead of traumatizing experience with Santa Claus this year, that's Christmastime. When I look at the Nativity and ponder how God came to Earth as a man to experience life as we do and to overcome sin and death, which we needed more desperately than we will ever need anything else, and when I sing the hymns that tell the story of His birth, I am able to worship Him in an especially heartfelt and beautiful way because it is Christmastime. I love this joyous, wondrous time of year and how it makes me feel closer to my friends, to my family, to my fellowman, and to my Savior Jesus Christ.