This Year Might be that Pivotal Holiday Moment.
Maybe this is that holiday season we always see in movies. Our movies aren’t about every Christmas. They’re about the ones where we’re Home Alone or whisked off to the North Pole.
They’re about finding the light in the darkest season, even when that light is just the promise of what’s to come.
In our most famous Christmas fable, A Christmas Carol, we can imagine that all of the Christmases before the story were the same. Each year, Scrooge McDuck (or pick your favorite Scrooge) is greedy and selfish—ignoring Christmas for his own pursuit of wealth. Only when he’s shown that money can’t bring immortality does he confront his immorality. It’s when he’s shown the fate of Tiny Tim (played by Kermit the Frog’s nephew Robin or pick your favorite Tiny Tim) that he changes his Christmases forever—putting others before himself.
The same is true in It’s a Wonderful Life. George Bailey is ready to end it all on Christmas Eve, but it turns out that he sees what the world is like without him and it’s a much worse place. When he returns to the present, he’s elated to be back with his family before the town arrives. He’s even joyful about going to jail.
For the Grinch, he realizes that he had the story of Christmas wrong. That’s actually the change of heart that Charlie Brown faces too.
Over and over again, our stories around this season are about changes in our perspective. Even the miracles of the season that happened with a menorah and a manager are about how the season was changed.
This is a hard season at the end of the year. But this year, we are being shown what Christmas might look like without our usual holiday travel and routines.
Hopefully, it’s just a glimpse, but it’s upon us this year and we have the chance to see the season and our lives from a new perspective.
