Bedazzled

It is true that Christmas really does feel so different from any other time of year. The biggest explanation is the spirit behind it, with the birth of the Savior giving meaning to all of our celebrations. Apart from that though (without at all minimizing it), I often wonder why it is my fingers tingle when I decorate my Christmas tree and why I keep it lit so much it's a crisp cracker halfway through the month, or why I keep a candle burning 24 hours a day just to inhale the glow, or why giving gifts to others makes me so happy I almost burst and tell them weeks early. And it's not only me. Everyone, everywhere, becomes more sentimental, more romantic, and more spiritual without feeling the need to excuse themselves.

One answer to these wonderments is this: Christmas does such a number on us simply because we decide to let it. The warmth and frenzy that overpowers us during the holidays is completely by choice (though anyone who secretly loves Justin Bieber's holiday album would have you believe otherwise). And if that's true, and so much of it is by decision, then I can feel this happy all year long by putting the same enthusiasm and excitement into my everyday life, into the more ordinary of months. I can take the holiday philosophy of embracing the moment, despite all other circumstances, with all of the positive energy and bedazzlement I can muster.

Some unknown person said, "I fall in love with people's passion, the way their eyes light up when they talk about the things they love." So here's to having Christmas passion for life for the whole of the coming year.