"I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year."

Charles Dickens. I love his writings, A Christmas Carol being my favorite book that he penned. (Shocker, right?) He wrote, "I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year." I was thinking of this statement this morning and I began to mourn the end of the Christmas season. I know that I should take advantage of the down time and rid my house of all of my beautiful Christmas decorations, but I just can't. I want to hold onto it for a little while longer.

As much as I would like to have frozen time on December 25th to savour every moment of that day, the reality is that Christmas has come and gone, and there will be 360 more days until it reappears. There is no stopping time. And as a mother who is now 36, I can tell you that I long to stop it on a regular basis--to pause on a special moment, to marvel at my kids at a certain stage just a moment longer, to hold their hands tightly while they let me, to snuggle them in bed while they will still visit me there, and to keep the wrinkles from multiplying and body parts from sagging. Sometimes I think time is an enemy, a thief.

I am powerless to stop time, of that I am certain. None of us can. Only God has that power, and He chooses to allow it to move on in this realm, though I believe there is no concept of time in Heaven. There is one passage in the Bible where He did stop the sun for almost an entire day for a battle because Joshua had prayed for him to do so. So, I guess there has been a moment in our history where time did stop. Hmmm.....that has me thinking.....maybe I should pray about this. :)

Anyway, on to the point of this blog. We had a wonderful Christmas. As is our tradition, we spent Christmas Eve at Aunt Bonnie's with the Bailey clan, and though the absence of Granny and Granddaddy always brings a tinge of sadness, we are always happy to be together. Christmas Eve, my family came over to open gifts and eat together. Christmas morning, the boys opened their gifts from Santa and since Anderson got a new airplane, we went over to my parents' house Christmas morning to fly it and eat breakfast with everyone there. That afternoon, we left for Greensboro and spent the evening with the Brewers. And today, five days later, I thought about this: the constant staples of these gatherings is always three things-- the presence of our God, the love of our families, the joy of the season.

And I guess really what I miss most about Christmas is just that: the presence (not the presents, though they are FUN), the love, and the joy. And what I thought about today when I remembered the Dickens quote was this: That presence, that love, and that joy are constant in my life. Sure, there is something magical about December for me. It always has been and always will be. But the things I love most about Christmas I carry throughout the whole year.

So, I DO honor Christmas in my heart, and I DO keep it all the year. And since time never stops, I will look forward to the time when the season arrives once again.