There is something essential and very human about celebration. It can be found in unexpected places and times. The holiday season is a good time to think about this. For many Americans, Christmas is the biggest and most drawn-out time of celebration in the calendar. It starts with Thanksgiving, moves through the long build-up to Christmas Day, and ends with New Year's Day. So what does the holiday season teach us about celebration?

 

Celebration is when everyday reality is suspended, and you allow the joy of something special, different, and good to fill you. You might shout. You might sing and dance. Or you might be filled with quiet happiness. You might give a gift. You might make a speech or offer a testimonial or congratulations. You might gather family and friends. You might eat a big meal together. You might take in the physical beauty of color and sound and sight. You might reflect on a deep inner sense of satisfaction. Or you might rush to someone you love, and share your delight with them.

 

Almost always, celebration interrupts normal activity and lifts us above that activity. Days of celebration are called holidays, which is derived from the Old English "holy days." These are days that you are lifted above the ordinary into something special, something a bit more sacred, something that might even partake of the "holy."

 

So it's not hard to see why celebration is essential to all holidays and especially to the Christmas season, where it often finds its most profound expression. It's as though on that first Christmas the whole cosmos turned toward Bethlehem and paused to celebrate the star, the wise men, the shepherds, the angels, even the earth itself. The carol tells us, "Joy to the world ... And heaven and nature sing ... let men their songs employ ... while fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains repeat the sounding joy."

 

At the heart of Christmas joy is release and reconciliation. The hope of the people was to be lifted above the everyday pain and struggle, to be lifted up into something better than the daily grind. Another carol proclaims, "No more let sin and sorrows grow." "Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled. Joyful all ye nations rise, join the triumph of the skies."

 

For most of us the Christmas celebration lasts only for a day or two, or maybe at most it is stretched out through the prolonged holiday season, but eventually the daily routine returns. Is it possible that the celebration and the daily routine are not separate, that celebration really can and does run through the whole cosmos, that it is always present just under our everyday reality?

 

There is the old saying that we should celebrate Christmas every day. That's probably not realistic, but it's worth thinking about, isn't it? Here are 10 ways you might help celebration rise up in your daily reality:

The medieval monk Brother Lawrence set out in the 17th century to "practice the presence of God." He wanted to be present to God in every moment of every day. It took him 10 years of effort until he achieved this constant sense of presence. And he was a simple dishwasher. He did not have the complex life of relationships and responsibilities most of us have.

 

The underlying spirit of joy that runs behind the everydayness of our lives is like the presence of God was for Brother Lawrence. In fact, some might say it is an expression of God's holy spirit. If this is true, the holidays are truly "holy days."

 

So is it possible to have a holiday every day? If Brother Lawrence's experience can be trusted, the answer is yes. May the joys of Christmas remind us that resounding joy may be more possible than we realize.