Then God spoke to me and said:
People say only good things about Christmas.
If they want to say something bad, they whisper.
--Anne Sexton
It would feel more like Christmas if...
to me, it never really feels like Christmas until my family is all together. Preferably sitting around a fire that we've begged Dad to make, and that if it dies down, he blames us for not watching it. Of course, if we play with it too much (remember, I'm the youngest child, my 35 year old brother Andy is really not going to try to melt some of his GI Joes), my Mom gets nervous and goes to read magazines in her room.
Something about smells makes it seem like Christmas. Cinnamon, woodsmoke, evergreen, candle wax, cold morning air...these all make a fragrance that turns my heart. It makes me smile now to think of it.
For the past few years, I've worried myself by how long it's taken me to "get into the Christmas spirit," but I think now I see that it is small, inward moments. Midnight service at church, with candles lit, singing the last verse of "Silent Night," knowing that believers all over are experiencing the same feeling of warmth and expectation. It's really not about songs and lights and smells, then. It's that More feeling that is really what makes Christmas. A nervous sort of joy. Inexpicable and wonderful. Something I can't force myself to feel by eating a candy cane or listening to on the radio. There's mystery in that.