Saturday, December 27, 1997

Carrying the spirit of Christmas all year long

By MICHAEL O'CONNOR / Abilene Reporter-News

The wrapping paper's long been cleared from the floor and taken to the trash. The presents were maybe on display for a day or so, but they've been put away, returned or prepared for return, maybe even broken already. The tree is back in its box or hauled off to the recycler. We can relax now -- the madness we call Christmas is over.

The holiday falls at the end of our calendars, and for many families, Christmas Day is a culmination. New Year's Day may still be ahead, but it's a holiday that really belongs to the next year. Christmas is an end.

In other nations and cultures, however, Christmas Day is the beginning of a celebration that spills over into the new year. If I remember my liturgical calendar correctly, Christmas and Christmastide begin the worship cycle. Indeed, if you stop to think about it long enough, a story about a birth is the story of a beginning.

e often hear others talk about keeping the "spirit of Christmas" year 'round. And we just as often nod our heads or utter an "amen." But by the time the last party dies out after New Year's Eve, the spirit is pretty much gone.

Perhaps this is because the "spirit" we glibly encourage keeping is so nebulous we don't really know what it is we're supposed to perpetuate. Giving of ourselves to others is surely part of it, but the demands of our daily lives can swallow up whatever giving spirit we may feel at Christmas.

Striving for "peace on earth, goodwill toward men" is part of that spirit, too. But reports of wars tend to dim our enthusiasm, and the first time some twit cuts us off while driving the light of peace is extinguished.

But the most important part of the "spirit of Christmas" is redemption.

One of my all-time favorite stories is Dickens' A Christmas Carol. The end of the story remarks that Scrooge became known for keeping Christmas all year long, but we somehow miss the message that the reason was because he had been redeemed and changed by his encounters. His is a story of rebirth -- a beginning, if you will.

Unfortunately the name "Scrooge" has become synonymous with the character's unredeemed nature, so we miss out on the point of the whole story -- sort of what we've done with the Christmas story.

The Christmas story is about God giving humans a chance at a new beginning, at redemption. Unless we grasp that salient point, unless we allow the story to bring about change in us -- conversion, in religious talk -- we will never be able to keep Christmas in our hearts all year.