The thing about Christmas is we can’t force joy.

No matter how much eggnog and spiced lattes we drink, cookies we decorate, presents we receive. Joy isn’t forced upon us. We don’t wake up with Christmas Spirit because the calendar pages turn.

Joy just happens.

This is what separates joy from happiness.

As The Oatmeal colorfully (but poignantly) illustrates, that condition of “happy” isn’t real. Ya know that sense of permanent mood we impose on one another. It just isn’t how we are.

And while happy may be seen as a constant or a state of being, joy is a blissful moment and a sudden sense of overwhelming

excitement / happy / thankfulness / gratitude / pride / hope / uplift

and we are left to wonder at its intensity and fleeting.

Joy is the perfect word for this season.

A season of preparation and expectation (it is still Advent, after all). The moment I looked at Rose just moments ago and we realized how much fun Christmas will be this year. How much fun our son will have. How he’s in that window of time

{the fleeting few years between innocent wonder and greedy expectation}.

How much fun we’ll have.

The very thought of that moment is itself fun.

Joy. It’s the only word for it. Fleeting joy.

I am longing for joy.

The thing about Christmas is it keeps coming back.

Every year. After overstuffing ourselves on Thanksgiving, our guilt turns from one binge into another. From food to happiness pacifiers for the family. Mugs, TVs, dolls, video games, books, and booze. The gorging on Black Friday continues into Cyber Monday and we’re off to the races for 4 weeks of a love gamble of debt and delusion.

To buy our happiness. To force joy.

But it doesn’t come.

Like the delusion of seeking war in the Middle East to force GOD to end the world despite Scriptural evidence and all common sense.

We can’t force Jesus to show up through buying things like preteens playing with a Ouija board. A summoned spirit through a ritual incantation.

Putting up a tree, hanging lights and ornaments, brewing tea and hot cocoa. Putting on Big Crosby and singing along. Wishing strangers a “Merry Christmas”; magic words to stir a slumbering spirit.

We’re not to know the time or moment when he comes again. But we’ll launch cruise missiles just in case. With tinsel!

The thing about Christmas is it isn’t the happiest time of the year.

It can be, of course. It was for me when I worked retail. Working on Christmas Eve at Barnes & Noble was actually fun. Customers were desperate and putting far more faith in me than they would the rest of the year. That one day.

Not the day before or the Saturday before when the malls are full to capacity. When they think stock is unlimited and anything can still be ordered. But not on Christmas Eve. The laws of physics finally catch up past the delusion. No, they won’t have everything. No they can’t get it.

So they trusted me to save Christmas.

And I loved elfing with customers and hiding their purchases from spouses and children. We were part elf, part spies. We’d rendezvous at the registers to our synchronized watches.

This stuff brought me joy because I wanted to work. I volunteered to. There is gratitude in knowing you can work so someone else can be at home.

I wasn’t forced to be there. Or have to so that we could pay rent.

I could do that and feel joy because I worked at a store where people respected each other.

And I’m not missing my parents or spouse or children. They haven’t died. I’m not alone.

I’m a Christian during the most unabashedly Christian time of the year. Even though religions the world over are celebrating now or preparing to shortly. An entire world celebrating in the same season. But many Christians can’t handle sharing.

Share this bread and this cup and remember me.
Unless they’re eating at the same time, then kick them out of the place. Oh, and tell ’em I told you to do it.

I don’t remember it going like that…

The thing about Christmas is that it’s full of emotions.

It isn’t just joy. It’s sad and happy and grateful and selfish and anger. And frustration and disappointment and gratitude.

Christmas is the most now thing in the world.

That’s why I’m grateful Christmas is coming.

Not because we’re broken and in need of getting happy. Or that this grand distraction will bring unity when we feel so divided. Like paper-wrapped presents of bitterness, pride, and anxiety will serve to meet our needs.

I’m grateful because we need the reminder, the focus, the hope that comes in a season full of humanity. It’s no wonder our feast of the incarnation would be the most human of holidays.

That we can turn to our neighbors and say

I love you.
I’m thankful you’re my neighbor.
We’ll get through this together.

Because the thing about Christmas is that we never really have to be alone.