For millions of people all around the world, Christmas is an especially joyous occasion. Christmas evokes the most cheerful feelings. It’s the time of year we show kindness and love to our fellow human beings and believe that there is hope for the world. It’s a special time, a magical time. But why? Why is Christmas so magical?
One of the reasons Christmas is magical is because our parents made it special. In my family, Thanksgiving weekend was the start of Christmas preparations when we put up the Christmas tree and Christmas lights. It was a family affair. Everyone got into the spirit of Christmas by helping decorate the tree. Even though my mother had just finished cleaning up after Thanksgiving dinner, she started getting ready for Christmas. My mom did a lot of baking–Christmas cookies, fruit cake, mincemeat pie, and date bars. My mom also did a lot of decorating. On our living room windows, she used acrylic paints and spray-on snow to paint a landscape of snow and pine trees as a background for Frosty the snowman. My father put up a cardboard fireplace where we hung stockings. He decorated the front door with Christmas wrapping paper and set speakers outside to blast Christmas music.
The special food, the decorations, and the music all made Christmas a grand sensory experience. Smells, sights, and sounds flooded our senses day and night all leading up to the grand finale—Christmas eve and Christmas morning. Christmas eve we put out cookies and a glass of milk for Santa then we lay in bed trying our best to stay awake in the hopes of seeing Santa. In the morning we rushed into the living room to see our presents under the tree. It was the pinnacle-magical moment our parents had worked so hard to create.
But what if you didn’t have such happy memories? What if rather than happy memories, Christmas brings back memories you’d rather forget?
All of us have experienced hurt. Unfortunately, some of the deepest hurt happened at home when we were young. Those painful experiences stay with us forever. Usually, we get on with life and seldom remember the painful events that hurt us, but then something—a smell, a sound, something we see—triggers our memory, and in our mind’s eye we see it again. We relive the hurt.
For some people—maybe for you, Christmas is the trigger that brings back the bad memories. For you, Christmas is not a happy time; it’s a dreadful time.
What can you do? What can you do when all around you are reminders of something awful, something dreadful? You can’t erase the past, nor can you erase the bad memories. The only thing is to move on with your life and make the best of it. But how? How do you put the past behind you when the holiday brings those painful memories back to life?
My suggestion is rather than trying to avoid the unavoidable—after all it’s impossible to escape Christmas—rather than suffer through the holiday with its negative memories, my suggestion is to build positive memories. Replace the negative memories with positive ones.
In the days of cassette tapes and VCR tapes, you could record audio and video on magnetic tape. When you wanted to erase what you had recorded, you simply recorded over it with a new recording. That’s what I’m suggesting. Make a new recording. Make new memories. Bake cookies and pies. Give these Christmas baked goods to your friends. Share them at work or at church. Put up decorations. Make your home reflect the reason for the season with reminders that Christmas is about the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Decorate your house and make it special. Find Christmas music and play the music in your house. Fill your home with Christmas cheer.
Let me make another suggestion. If no one can come to your house for Christmas and you don’t want to spend it alone, go somewhere special. Get away for the holidays. There are cruise lines, resorts, and amusement parks that offer special holiday festivities. Go on a cruise. Book a room at a resort. There is more than one way to celebrate Christmas. Start a new tradition of getting away for the holidays.
If you can’t afford to get away, you don’t have to be stuck alone at home. You can volunteer to help people who are in the hospital or nursing home. There are many people who can’t be home for the holidays. Many of them are lonely and forgotten. Hospitals, churches, and nursing homes have opportunities for you to volunteer. All it takes is a phone call to find out if there is a way for you to help bring a little Christmas cheer for those who can’t be home for the holidays.
The point is to be proactive. Remember the best defense is a good offense. Don’t run away from Christmas; run into it with purpose and determination. Make a conscious effort to make Christmas a time of joy. Above all, remember the message the angels gave on the first Christmas morning. The Bible tells us that
There were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” (Luke 2:8-14)
Holding on to the hurt during Christmas is unhealthy and selfish. The holiday is about caring and sharing. There are people all around you—friends, family, complete strangers who need you to be a sharing and caring person at this time of year. When you hold on to the hurt, you deprive others of the joy you could bring. Let me encourage you. Ask God to help you overcome the hurt by making new and happy memories. Not only will you be grateful, but so too will those around you because Christmas is a time of “good news of great joy that will be for all the people.” And this includes you.
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