As Christmas approaches, the whole world (or, at least my whole tiny world in our little town) gets caught up in the preparations. People chatter about decorating trees, baking cookies, giving gifts. The supposed war on Christmas notwithstanding, I hear "Merry Christmas" from many people, store clerks included. Radio stations that normally shy away from Jesus and His pesky ways play songs about the Savior, and on television Linus Van Pelt announces to the whole world what Christmas is all about.
It's as if, for awhile, the world shares one faith. It stirs me to imagine what it would be like to live in a world that truly lived and acted as the Body of Christ, a world that shared one vision and had one goal: to see that Savior that Linus tells us about.
Then, of course, it all comes to an abrupt halt on December 26th (this is the part I don't love ....) While my family and I are celebrating via the liturgical calendar, which tells us that Christmas begins on December 25th, is celebrated for an octave and that the Christmas season marches officially on until the Feast of the Presentation (Feb. 2), while we're belting out Christmas carols this week, celebrating the birth of Jesus in high style, the rest of the world is saying it's over. I'm still saying "Merry Christmas" while others have switched to "Happy New Year." We're counting the Twelve Days of Christmas, looking forward to the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6th in a world that thinks the Twelve Days of Christmas means the final countdown of shopping days before the 25th.
But, we don't let any of that put a damper on our celebrations. Jesus and His birthday are worth days and days of celebration, and He's worth looking like an out-of-sync moron in the eyes of the world. And fortunately, we're raising kids who don't mind being out-of-sync morons (at least not so far) so they happily celebrate right along with us.
And we're all thankful that, at least for a little while, the world cared about what Linus Van Pelt had to say.
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