Keeping Christmas Well

Like many people I truly love the Christmas Season.  But do I keep Christmas well?    I love decorating the house (you will be seeing pictures of that soon) and wrapping gifts in beautiful paper with shiny ribbon and placing them under the lovely tree that was chosen and cut by the whole family. I write Christmas cards and donate to the food bank.  There will be Christmas music and lights and laughter, good food and family time.  I put up my nativity sets every year.  Some years I even sing in the choir or ring the bells. And of course, the whole family will definitely attend the Christmas Eve Candlelight service.  But the question I keep asking myself is, "Do I keep Christmas well?"  I am trying to figure out what that means. This year I have been especially focused on Advent with daily readings and prayer trying to capture that true essence of "Keeping Christmas". 

I have also been going through some other readings from old stories written by Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933) famous for his writing of The Story of the Other Wise Man.  Below is a quote from his writing called Keeping Christmas.   

"There is a better thing than the observance of Christmas day; and that is keeping Christmas.

...Are you willing to forget what you have done for other people, and to remember what other people have done for you; to ignore what the world owes you, and to think what you owe the world; to put your rights in the background, and your duties in the middle distance, and your chances to do a little more than your duty in the foreground; to see that your fellows are just as real as you are, and try to look behind their faces to their hearts, hungry for joy; to admit that probably the only reason for your existence is not what you are going to get out of life, but what your are going to give to life;...Then you can keep Christmas

Are you willing to stoop down and consider the needs and the desires of little children; to remember the weakness and loneliness of people who are growing old; to stop asking how much your friends love you, and ask yourself whether you love them enough; to bear in mind the things that other people have to bear on their hearts; to try to understand what those who live in the same house with you really want, without waiting for them to tell you; to trim your lamp so that it will give more light and less smoke, and to carry it in front so that your shadow will fall behind you; to make a grave for your ugly thoughts, and a garden for your kindly feelings, with the gate open--are you willing to do these things even for a day?  Then you can keep Christmas.

.Are you willing to believe that love is the strongest thing in the world--stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death--and that the blessed life that began in Bethlehem two thousand years ago is the image and brightness of the Eternal Love?  Then you can keep Christmas.

And if you keep it for a day, why not always?  But you can never keep it alone."