It’s time to turn off the Christmas lights for the last time. Time to un-trim the tree and pack away all the Christmas decorations. Another Christmas season is over, but is that it?

As we return to the ordinary routines in our lives, Christmas can easily become something that falls from our minds. We complain when stores start stocking Christmas ornaments in the summer, or a cable channel plays Christmas movies for the month of July. Yet, the reality is that we need to keep the most miraculous gift to mankind always in mind. As mortal beings, we seem to look at the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus as the most important thing of all. Perhaps because of our own mortality, the thought of willingly giving up oneself as a sacrifice is very hard to comprehend. However, in order for Jesus to give up that life, He first had to take on flesh, He had to become one of us. There is no logic that can explain the action of a deity that will put aside His glory and become fully human. The only possible explanation is love. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:16-17) It’s this love for us that gives us every beat of our heart and every breath we take.

With Lent right around the corner, our focus will shift to that penitential season, yet in the week prior to Holy Week this year, we will pause our Lenten somberness to celebrate the feast of the Annunciation on March 25. If in the season of Lent the Church reminds us of Christmas, we too should look for ways of keeping Christmas alive all year long. One way is praying the joyful mysteries of the Rosary, perhaps with a deeper sense of meditation and allowing the joy of the season to wash over us. Another way is in the celebration of the Mass, as the priest consecrates the Eucharist, Jesus becomes as present in the Holy Communion as He was in the manger all those years ago, for He is truly Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in that sacrament. As we lift our hands to receive Him, let us approach the sacrament as if we were receiving a little baby, careful of how we cradle Him in our hand and respectful in how we receive and consume Him.  

If we want to keep the Love of God firmly in mind, we need to practice. Perhaps the next time we see something Christmas related when it is “out of season,” instead of rolling our eyes and complaining about the commercialism of the holiday, we might instead say a prayer of thanksgiving for being reminded of how much God, through Jesus, loves us and ask for help in keeping the Christmas gift firmly in mind all the year through.