Spirit of Christmas (eBook)

It is a good thing to observe Christmas day. The mere marking of times and seasons, when men agree to stop work and make merry together, is a wise and wholesome custom. It helps one to feel the supremacy of the common life over the individual life. It reminds a man to set his own little watch, now and then, by the great clock of humanity which runs on sun time.
But 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 fellow-men are just as real as you are, and try to look behind their faces to their hearts, hungry for joy, to own that probably the only good reason for your existence is not what you are going to get out of life, but what you are going to give to life, to close your book of complaints against the management of the universe, and look around you for a place where you can sow a few seeds of happiness - are you willing to do these things even for a day? Then you can keep Christmas.

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In the consumerism-addled hustle and bustle of the typical twenty-first century Christmas, it can be difficult to find time to reflect on the true significance of the season. Theologian Henry van Dyke's placid meditation on the meaning of Christmas is a wonderful way for believers to reconnect with the key tenets of their faith, at Christmastime or at any time of the year.