Christmas really is a place

When my son was two and a half he asked me in early December when we were “going to Christmas.” I tried to explain to him Christmas wasn’t a place. (We always stayed home for Christmas until we moved closer to home ... so we weren’t going anywhere.)

For weeks he kept asking me what car we were taking to Christmas and when we were leaving. I guess he associated it with some type of fun vacation? Earlier that year we had gone to the Smoky Mountains and visited the Christmas Place in Pigeon Forge, which is a huge store of nothing but Christmas decorations. Maybe, he thought that was where Christmas was.

Over the years, the more I think about it, the more I think that maybe he wasn’t that far off in his thinking.

Christmas is a place – maybe not in the physical sense that he meant, but it is a state of mind.

For some, getting to that state is an easy journey. For others, it takes days or weeks to get there. Others never quite make it to Christmas.

I know that I have been guilty of taking each of these “routes” to Christmas from year to year.

Sometimes, I am not sure I even know the proper directions. I think I try to find some type of shortcut or I am traveling in the totally wrong direction.

Too often I think Christmas is supposed to come to me instead of the other way around.

I look for it in the decorations (which don’t get me wrong, I love) or in the gifts or the baked goods or the parties. While all of those things are a wonderful part of the journey, it isn’t the final destination of Christmas, at least for me. It doesn’t get me fully to that Christmas State of Mind.

Far too often, our focus on the holiday gets skewed by the hustle and bustle of the trip that we forget to focus on the true purpose and joy in the journey.

This year things are quieter. Things are simpler. The “traffic” is lighter. We should be capable of “going to Christmas” much easier this year.

Maybe we should hurry off in a different direction this year than normal – a more direct route. Maybe we should be like the shepherds who hurried off to find the baby. “So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.” Luke 2:16.

While many of our holiday activities have been put on hold this year, maybe we can spend this time on a quiet journey directly toward the manger. That is where you will find Christmas – wrapped in swaddling clothes.

The Christmas State of Mind for me is located in that manger. When I think about the magnitude of that one night over 2,000 years ago, the gift that God gave the world, I have reached my Christmas destination.

So, Wesley was right. Christmas is a place, as well as a feeling.

Take time this year to enjoy the joyful, tree-lit journey to Christmas. It is a State of Mind big enough for us all to visit where we don’t have to socially distance.