What is it about Christmas? That ephemeral magic that touches us as winter falls, glimmering with giddiness, hope, and joy?

What things coalesce to make it transcend?

Christmas is a time we put aside ordinary worries to refocus on what is of the highest value.

It is a time we buy, make, and prepare gifts for the ones we love, to make our homes, workplaces, and communal areas dazzle with lights and smiles and evergreens. 

It’s when bake and cook REAL food without a thought for the calories. {Pass the butter, please.}

In this season we consider the less fortunate, surround ourselves with glorious music, contemplate the year gone, and the year to come with a presence of mind and spirit.

It is a time when we revel in our loved ones’ presences like decadent chocolate truffles, slowing down enough to see and appreciate them, to mend fences. When we strive a little harder for peace on earth and goodwill toward mankind.

As I dwell on these elements of Christmas, an epiphany dawns. 

Christmas is like Heaven.

Heaven, the place filled with activity but all of it out of joy. That shimmering country filled with song and dance and feasting and excitement! Heaven is made of glistening light and shining gems. There our worries won’t just be forgotten for a time but wiped away forever. And best of all, we will fellowship not only with the best people made perfect but the God who created it all and rescued for himself a people, coming as an infant and dying to pay for their souls.

In His kingdom of glory, we will meet the climax of Christmas’ intent. The perfect celebration.

The earnestness we have for Christmas to arrive, and the mourning we feel once it has past, is a not-so-secret manifestation of the Heaven we were made for.