Awhile back, PR31 and I decided that our family would celebrate Christmas in July this year. The boys are on a break from school this week… My current work allows me the freedom to adapt my schedule… Hallmark Channel has Christmas movies on all week… QVC is selling like it’s Black Friday or Cyber Monday… Hobby Lobby is already putting trees and ornaments out on their aisles… So why not Team A?
We love Christmas in our family! No seriosuly, we LOVE it!!! The song says, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year,” and we believe the song is right. Christmas is a time when people speak more kindly… when they are more generous… when they think of others and not just themselves. Add to that the fact that we Christ-followers who say that we ought to celebrate all God has done for us throughout the year.
Stir that all up in a bowl, and just makes perfect sense to us to celebrate Christmas in July.
There are sugar cookies being made… Christmas carols are being played… classic Christmas movies being watched… a Christmas tree has been put up and decorated… an elf is being hidden each night after the boys go to bed… Christmas crafts are being made… and even small, inexpensive gifts will be exchanged toward the end of the week.
What’s crazy is… despite the fact that we live in the Deep South and it’s well over 90 degrees each day this week… when the skies were overcast the other day, and the air conditioner was turned down a degree or two, and the small lights on the tree and mantle are shimmering, and the Christmas decor is hung, and a Christmas movie is on… well, it’s easy to forget that it’s July. In fact, the other evening I was almost so absorbed in the moment that I had to really had to think about whether it was July or December.
You can call it ridiculous. You can say it’s just positive thinking. You can say we’re just tricking our minds into thinking what we want to think, and tricking our feelings into what we want to feel.
Yet, it hit me that we have some power in our lives that is really quite amazing. God has created us with the ability to transform the way we think and feel by changing what we see… or maybe more accurately, by changing what we choose to look at. I can look at the thermometer and see that it is 92 degrees outside with a heat index of over 100 degrees… too hot to go outside and enjoy much other than a pool. Or I can look at the thermostat and turn it down another degree to create the atmosphere which helps create a sense of joy and fun for my family.
All this reminds me that Paul told the believers in Rome to “…let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.” And in II Kings 6, when an evil king sent a whole army to capture the prophet Elisha, his servant freaked out until Elisha prayed that God would help the servant see what he already saw… God’s army of angels with chariots and horses of fire completely surrounding the enemy army. What he saw changed his perspective.
That’s what I’m getting at today. Instead of just looking at our situations and being baffled, or bored, or bummed, why not be proactive and decorate our world to reflect what it is more real and more in line with what God wants for us. We might just be surprised. We might forget the difficulties and challenges we currently face and relax. We might just discover some extra joy we thought was only reserved for special occasions.
It’s up to us, though, to get out the decorations… roll out the cookie dough… and wrap the gifts… if we are going to change the way we think to point our emotions in the right direction.
So go ahead… toss a little tinsel… heat up a little ham… and have yourself a merry little Christmas now… in July!
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