Cling To Christmas
I don’t know about you, but most of the adults in my world (yours truly included) can’t put Christmas away fast enough. And, on some level, I get it. We’ve distorted the holiday in ways that have stripped it of its magic and made it too much like work. Truth is, we adults seem to have a penchant for doing that with A LOT of things that were meant to be light, pure, playful, celebratory, spontaneous, unencumbered, and organic (e.g., relationships, social gatherings, vacations, parenting, Life, etc.). We overcomplicate them, contaminate them, clutter them, and, in the process, slowly siphon the joy out of them.
But, as I looked at this picture taken just the other day, it occurred to me that Macie takes a VERY DIFFERENT approach. She's in no hurry for Christmas to end. In fact, for her, every morning IS Christmas morning. That's because, unlike us, Macie hasn’t learned to take Life for granted. She also doesn’t live in fear of the uncertainty that is an inescapable part of a new day. Quite the opposite. She can’t wait to blast out of her crib and embrace it – ALL of it. In fact, like a beautifully-wrapped present under the tree, it's precisely the uncertainty of what might unfold before her - combined with her insatiable curiosity - that holds the magic.
All of which got me to thinking.
What if instead of greeting the new day and its inevitable uncertainties with an expectation of “sameness” or, worse yet, trepidation, we too treated it like Christmas morning, the way Macie does – the way all of us once did. What if we channeled that same sense of wonder and curiosity that filled our hearts when we woke to find an exquisitely-wrapped gift under the tree with our name on it and allowed it to inspire and motivate us to get out of bed and embrace those uncertainties, rather than allowing them to be a paralyzing force in our lives. What if, in short, we insisted that fear take a back seat to our childhood sense of adventure?
What if I told you it’s essential to our ever finding true JOY again? What then?
