How to Stay Hopeful When Christmas Is Over

Well, Christmas has come…and now it’s gone.

So much preparation was needed for Christmas, and now it’s over. But honestly, the preparation wasn’t the hard part. The gift-buying, cookie-baking, tree-decorating, and light-stringing weren’t difficult compared to this.

Now Comes the Hard Part

It’s the day after Christmas, and everything is the same as it was before Christmas. The whirlwind of Christmas activities didn’t make my struggles disappear—or even make them better. Those activities just made me forget about my struggles for a short period of time.

But wasn’t the magic of Christmas supposed to fix everything?

Kevin McCallister found his family. Luther Krank learned the meaning of sacrifice and generosity. George Bailey received a ton of money. Susan Walker started to believe in Santa and ended up with a new dad and a new home.

In real life, though, Christmas magic does nothing but make the post-Christmas season even harder. Now we have to pick up wherever we left off before the Christmas craziness kicked in—whether that was in the middle of a tense argument with a family member or in a battle against a serious illness or in an emotionally exhausting work environment. Now that Christmas is over, we’re again faced with the reality that life is hard.

But the hope that we have at Christmas is the hope that can—and must—anchor us all year long.

Our Eternal Hope

Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. (Galatians 4:3-7 NKJV)

Friends, Christ didn’t come to remove the struggles that we have on Earth. He came to rescue us from the one thing that stood between us and the Father: sin. He came to free us from the punishment that we deserved: death. He came to invite us to a place where struggles don’t even exist: Heaven.

Jesus was with you before Christmas, and He isn’t going anywhere now. He is Immanuel—”God with us”—before, during, and after the Christmas season.

Without Christmas, we would have no hope. But because of Christmas, we have hope on the 364 days of the year when we don’t feel quite as merry and bright. Our hope in Christ is the only thing that can sustain us when the Christmas magic disappears.