If You’ve Lost Your Christmas Spirit

Staring at the blinking Christmas lights, listening to Christmas carols on Spotify, making reindeer-shaped cookies, buying gifts on Amazon for family and friends…

After a while, Christmas can begin to feel old…dull…even depressing.

As I wrote about a couple weeks ago, Christmas used to feel so exhilarating. When I was younger, it was full of wonder and excitement. I laid in bed on Christmas Eve as I wondered if I heard Santa’s sleigh on our roof. I poured my heart into decorating the Christmas tree with tons of ornaments and hand-woven snowflakes that my grandmother had made. I picked out special gifts for my parents, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends. Now, however, I spend a lot of the Christmas season in a melancholic state.

Help! I Can’t Find My Christmas Spirit!

Christmas no longer feels super magical and exciting. It can actually feel really melancholic and depressing. The music saddens me because it’s the same music that I heard when I was young. The decorations upset me because they’re the same decorations that my mom put up when I was young. The ornaments depress me because they’re the same ones that I held when I was young.

I know that Christmas technically hasn’t changed. But the way that I feel at Christmas is different because I’m different. My Christmas memories are bittersweet. The times that my family shared are sweet, but the reality of my adulthood is bitter. Which causes me to lose my Christmas spirit.

In response to this loss, I usually let myself fall into the Christmas self-pity trap: Why do I feel this way? No one else feels like this. This is horrible, and it’ll never be better.

I’ve bought the lie that Christmas is all about me and how I feel. But friends, Christmas isn’t about us.

The Only Way to Find Your Christmas Spirit

Of course, it’s not sinful for you to feel un-Christmassy. You can’t force yourself to feel a certain way, but you can focus on the truth about Christmas regardless of how you feel. And this is the truth about Christmas:

“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel (which means, God with us).” (Matthew 1:23 ESV)

God wanted to be with us. In our midst. Here.

No longer separated. No longer distance between us. No longer apart.

Always. Never leaving. Now and forever.

If you’ve lost your Christmas spirit, maybe you’ve been looking for it in the wrong place. Maybe you’ve been looking at yourself instead of looking to the Savior. We (sometimes unintentionally) become selfish at Christmas by focusing solely on our feelings (and lack thereof). But there’s more to Christmas than fickle feelings.

“She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21 ESV)

Christmas revolves around this very fact—not us or our emotions or even our traditions. The best Christmas spirit that we can have is one of thankfulness to God for sending His only Son to our broken world to save us from every sin that we’ve ever committed and will commit. This year, I hope that you find your Christmas spirit in Christ.