CHRISTMAS MESSAGE: Find joy in the small things
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A few weeks ago, I was sitting with family and friends when someone asked, “What’s giving you life these days?”
The grandparents, predictably, said, “Grandkids.”
The grandkids said, “Setting up the Christmas tree.”
Someone told a story about their nieces and nephews.
And then one person quietly said, “I’m choosing to try to find joy in the small things this Christmas.”
That answer stayed with me.
Because as soon as they said it, I started noticing those small things too.
I thought about the Gifts of Light campaign at the hospital on November 30. Yes, we gathered to support a multi-million-dollar expansion that will benefit our whole community. But the moments that gave me life were the little ones, like the shrieks of delight from the seven-year-olds as they rattled along Henry Street in the wagon ride.
Or later that night, after standing in the cold, playing hide-and-seek with a two-year-old in the upstairs of Santa Lucia. There we were, crouching under tables, “finding” each other even though we could both see perfectly well where the other was hiding. Nothing but pure, uncomplicated joy.
I think of the joy of hearing a familiar Christmas carol drift through a room.
The joy of reading a book beside the Christmas tree.
The joy of unexpectedly hearing one of the best renditions of Handel’s Messiah, in your own church, for just ten dollars!
The joy of watching kids sing their hearts out at school concerts.
And, counterintuitively, there is even a kind of joy in giving ourselves permission not to be happy this Christmas. After all, happiness depends on our happenings, and life can be hard.
In a season that pushes “bigger, better, brighter,” full schedules, and endless striving for more, I’m reminded that the Nativity story isn’t about any of that.
The Nativity story is about… small.
God choosing to enter the world as a baby.
It’s about… the insignificant.
God choosing an unwed teenager named Mary to carry Christ.
It’s about… those at the lower end of the pay scale.
Angels announcing the birth of God’s Son not to royalty, but to shepherds.
It’s about… people on the margins of national priorities.
The first to notice the Christmas star were magi from a faraway land—perhaps locals thought of them as temporary foreign workers? Or immigrants?
It’s about… ordinary, even mundane, accommodations.
A manger is hardly a five-star resort on TripAdvisor.
In a season that tells us to go big, maybe Christmas invites us to go small, to pay attention, to notice, to receive joy in the ordinary.
Maybe the holiest thing we can do this Christmas… is to find joy in the small things.