Hope and Joy at Home All Year Long

We wait in anticipation of Christmas for so many months. We fill up our Pinterest boards in October, run out to get a tree right after Thanksgiving, and wrap gifts as soon as December rolls around. Christmas Day arrives, and poof — it’s over.

If can be a bit depressing. All the excitement and planning, then it’s done — and we have 11 months before we get back to celebrating again.

One name for Jesus is Emmanuel, meaning, “God with us.”

But what if we didn’t lose heart? It is possible to keep that Christmas feeling within our families long after the season is over, using the reason for the season and a Charles Dickens classic as our guides.

Two concepts of the season are “peace” and “hope.” Many Christmas cards received and decorations purchased are adorned with these two words — these ideas that illuminate the Christmas season through the cold winter months. If we let them, peace and hope can follow us all year, becoming not just handy buzz-words but real ideals we strive for and experience, and share with our kids.

Related: Where Does God Want You to Go in 2017?

We do this by remembering daily the “reason for the season,” and teaching our children to honor it every day, not just on Christmas. One name for Jesus is Emmanuel, meaning “God with us.” Jesus’ birth was significant — and subsequently, feared by many in power during his time on earth — because it signified a change: God was no longer only accessible by priests, the Holy of Holies or the ark of the covenant. From here on out, God would dwell with mankind and ultimately within man, after Jesus’ death. This is true 365 days a year.

During Christmas, we also feel a certain nostalgia as we remember childhood holidays. We can remember our pasts and highlight the good all year long, just as we do at Christmas, while letting go of the things that weren’t as pleasant. We can connect meaningfully with our families and celebrate a special time with our children without it being the Christmas season.

Embody peace and joy, celebrating that God is with us at all times.

We can learn through our Christmas memories to accept our families’ shortcomings — we’ve all got them. Christmas is a great time to face the past and see how the good and bad can positively affect the future, just as in Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” This story is an excellent way to keep Christmas in our hearts all year long. We can be grateful for the chance to re-write the future into one of kindness and love.

As festivities wind down and the kids head back to school and parents back to work, don’t lose the joy that accompanies the Christmas season.

Choose instead to let it follow you, to let it be a part of your life.

Related: The New Year’s Goal I Am to Achieve

Embody peace and joy, celebrating that God is with us at all times. That fact alone helps us move past our own ghosts of Christmas past — and into the vast potential of the future.