After Christmas

Christmas day comes and Christmas day goes, but this year I have a feeling it will be staying with me all year long. It tended to do that last year and this year solidified it. Because of the surgery last year I didn’t get very involved in any of the traditional shopping and decorating or gift exchanging. I listened to the music, read the Biblical account of the birth of Jesus and had lots and lots of time to ponder the real reason for Christmas and experience its miracles.

This year I did a lot of the traditional things, but with getting sick two days before Christmas it was more of a repeat of last year. Again my nurse daughter and her husband the doctor came to my rescue. They mailed me an antibiotic that I took for the first time on Christmas Eve morning. I could tell it had started to work, but I was still too sick on Christmas Eve to go to my mother’s house for the traditional Christmas Eve dinner so the family went to mother’s and left me alone in a quiet house for the evening. I read the Christmas story and pondered the meaning of Christmas, did a little writing about my feelings, and just soaked in the Christmas cheer. It was wonderful. I had many thoughts, but the one that has stuck with me is that every story of a changed heart is a Christmas story.

This year I’m going to celebrate Christmas all year long.