Let Every Heart Sing Part 5

Let it be Christmas Forever

For some people, Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) strikes during the holiday season. Sometimes, this is due to the loss of a loved one, and at a time when everyone around them is in a festive mood, eagerly anticipating gathering with family, the absence of this loved one can feel more pronounced. The holiday season also comes at a time when the days are at their shortest and the weather is getting colder, and for some people, this absence of sunlight darkens their mood. While I have empathy for these people, I started noticing even around third or fourth grade that my gloomy mood would come over me after the holidays, sometime between December 26 and January 2. While I cannot see the Christmas lights, I can feel the joyful mood they ignite in everyone around me. I love the special music of Christmas, the smell of cookies baking, the happy bustle of shoppers and the sweet background music of the Salvation Army bells ringing outside many stores. I sing in a choir and I love how during the holiday season, people who don’t normally listen to choral music fill concert venues out of tradition, and people who don’t normally go to church are stirred to attend on Christmas Eve, filling the sanctuary with joyful noise, and at the end of every service, the warmth and cozy fragrance of candle smoke. After a month or so of such an intense spirit of joy, I have always found it difficult to transition back to ordinary life. That first trip back to a store on December 26 when all is silent except for a few people returning gifts or looking for bargains on Christmas decorations for next year, that first day back at school struggling through Math knowing there was nothing fun to look forward to for months always felt like a bucket of ice water to the face.

This year, my SAD has been a little more intense than usual because on the morning of December 26, my maternal grandmother (Granny) passed away. But in general, my SAD has actually been less intense in adulthood than it was during childhood. A small part of this could be attributed to the fact that my life has actually been easier as an adult, especially post-pandemic, than it was as a child. Being able to work and take classes remotely so that I don’t have to venture out into the cold and snow and ice as often, and having paid my dues struggling through Math so that I can get a full night’s sleep and have so much more time and energy for things I enjoy, has vastly improved my January mood. But I have also noticed a correlation between an improved attitude toward January, and a more mature Christian faith.

For most holidays, I agree with Jane Kamensky’s assessment that they are about what we aspire to be in an ever-changing now. But Christmas is different in that I think this holiday for Christians—and everyone else, though they don’t realize it—is about what we wish this world could be, and one day will be. I think this is why even people who don’t identify as Christian enjoy the nostalgic songs about families gathering together with no mention of any family drama, or songs yearning for peace on earth, good will toward men. It explains how during World War I, a group of German and British soldiers came to a beautiful Christmas truce where for one night, they put down their guns and sang carols together. (The above link is a PBS screen play that is behind a paywall but it is beautiful, and the music is awesome, well worth the cost of becoming a PBS passport member if you are at all interested.) But in this broken world, Christmas does not last forever. The soldiers were eventually forced to return to the status quo of war. Family gatherings do not always live up to the expectations of nostalgic songs, and in fact Christmas can exacerbate family dramas. The Christmas decorations must come down, and we must return to the realities of school or a stressful/boring job with not even a cookie for comfort in January because we ate too many in December. I wonder if on that first Christmas when the angels appeared to the shepherds in the field and they abandoned their sheep to come and worship Jesus, if after seeing this incredible miracle, they had a difficult time transitioning back to their mundane shepherding duties.

It seems fitting to end this series with a song that expresses this sentiment, because the wonderful thing about music is that no matter how complicated an emotion you may be feeling, songs prove that others have felt the same way, and their talent setting emotions to music can be very comforting. I couldn’t decide on just one song to convey this emotion. There are three songs I have heard that each add a beautiful layer to this sentiment. Elvis Presley’s If Every Day Was Like Christmas sings like a lament. You can almost hear him crying after each verse that conveys the magic of Christmas when he sings the refrain, “why can’t every day be like Christmas? Why can’t that feeling go on endlessly? For if every day could be just like Christmas, what a wonderful world this would be.”

When I was in high school, Dad brought home an Alan Jackson Christmas album from the library, and Mom and I both loved one song in particular, Let it be Christmas. The refrain of this song is actually where I found the inspiration for the title of this series: “Let every heart sing, let every bell ring. A story of hope and joy and peace.” As Christians, we understand the hope and joy and peace he is referring to, and he also subtly references the birth of Christ when he sings let it be Christmas “in what this day means and what we believe,” but it is not an explicitly religious song. Yet another phrase in the refrain beautifully captures the Christmas spirit that I think Jesus intended: “let anger and fear and hate disappear. Let there be love that lasts through the year.” If enjoyed with proper perspective, there is nothing wrong with enjoying our culture’s secular traditions, exchanging gifts with loved ones, putting up beautiful decorations. But as Christians, we know that Christmas is not just a day or even a season. It is the attitude of our hearts. From television interviews I have seen, I know that Alan Jackson believes in Christ, yet maybe he recognized how being too heavy-handed with Christian references can alienate people who may not be ready to commit their lives to Christ, or even people who want to believe in Christ but who are experiencing a season of doubt after being wounded by fellow Christians. This song expresses a longing for Christmas to last forever, but frames this sentiment with a mature perspective. This song implies that the country roads lined with green mistletoe, the city streets where a thousand lights glow cannot last all year, but the attitude of our hearts, an attitude where love overpowers anger and fear and hate every day of the year is the aspect of Christmas that really matters, the Christ of Christmas if you will, and if Christians emulate Christ, the spirit of Christmas can last all year.

Perry Como’s I Wish It Could be Christmas Forever also focuses for the most part on the secular magic of Christmas, the sparkling lights, the candy canes and mistletoe, children singing carols we know. But the very last phrase of the refrain struck me. “If love and peace on earth could always stay, I know it could be Christmas every day.” I don’t know anything about Perry Como’s religious beliefs, but regardless, this song implies that we all long for love and peace on earth. But very few of us, given our fallen state, look to the right source for this love and peace. The secular world either believes peace is possible one day, but look to policies, or progress or education to achieve it, when none of these things address the root of the problem, our hearts. Or, they have given up on the possibility that there will ever be peace in their lives—forget about peace on earth—(or in Christian lingo, a lifting of the curse of sin,) and instead medicate the ache in their hearts with a season of unrealistic expectations, excessive spending, eating, drinking or decorating. Christian Nationalists believe that Christ will return and there will be peace on earth one day, but they confuse Christian love with Christian supremacy. Rather than emulating Christ, gently beckoning unbelievers toward him, showing we are Christians by our love, as my mom used to sing in Sunday school, they seek to force Christianity on unbelievers through legislation. Rather than advocating for an end to war, reflecting Christ, the Prince of Peace, they advocate for the American equivalent of Pax Romana, (Roman peace) an artificial peace achieved by projecting military strength, believing that our military strength is a sign of God’s favor. Rather than using the Christmas season as an opportunity to reflect Christ in a winsome way to people of other faiths, they declare a “war on Christmas” if there is a Menorah, but not a nativity scene on a courthouse lawn. I think all of these songs challenge us in a gentle way to be better. It is natural to be a little blue when all the Christmas festivities end, and there is still most of the long, cold winter ahead. But as Christians, we have an advantage over the secular world because we know that we don’t really need the secular traditions of Christmas to find joy. We know that Christ, not the store-bought Christmas lights, is the true light of the world, and that peace is not just an impossible dream to sing about, a nostalgic sentiment we manufacture for one day out of the year, or a privilege only reserved for “Christian nations” with a strong military, but something that will one day be a permanent reality for the whole world when Christ returns, the curse of sin is lifted and we enjoy eternal life and we don’t need to win culture wars to proclaim this good news. In fact, while I hope we never experience real persecution for our beliefs—churches being bombed, Christians being arrested, even executed—as the early church faced, and as millions of Christians face today in the global south, it is worth remembering that regions where Christians are persecuted are where Christianity often grows most rapidly because Christianity tested by the fires of persecution is often more genuine and true to the teaching of Christ. Let us not take our historically unprecedented freedom to worship for granted. What if, in 2024, we lived as though we truly believe what we profess to believe? What if our thoughts and attitudes, and our interactions with friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, the poor and marginalized in our society, those we disagree with politically, offered a foretaste of the truth that because Christ came into our world to dwell among us and save us from the curse of sin, and will one day return again, it really will be Christmas forever?