As a Christian, a follower of Christ, I love the Christmas holiday not only because it is a time of celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, but also that it is a time of hope and transcendence.  If you are not Christian, please allow me to write about Jesus Christ and the universal message that this holiday has for people of all creeds and cultures.  I find that all religions have something to offer, and “I love my neighbor as myself,” an important teaching of Christ.

December 25th in the western world is a day of feasts, gift-giving and celebration because it symbolically marks the day that God was born into human form.  The word “Christmas” is one that started perhaps as early as 200 C.E., but came into prominence after the Middle English “Cristemas,” from Old English “Cr?stes mæsse” or festival of Christ, according to the American Heritage Dictionary.

For me, the birth of Christ is cause for great hope and happiness – God, our Creator is here with us, because He has been born as His Son, come to teach us the ways of God and to heal and save us.  This to me means that God Himself is present in all of God’s Creation.  Historians may argue about the day of Christ’s birth, or if Jesus Christ existed at all, but to me, God is very real and present, and the teachings of Jesus Christ point me to Him inside me and in everyone.

The story of Christ’s arrival, an outcast at birth, born in a manger with animals by an unmarried couple – to a virgin – conceived by a miracle, immediately announced by a bright star bringing people to come and see and to offer gifts to God, is absolutely beautiful and amazing.  Historians love it too; they love to argue if it ever happened at all!  I don’t care, the story is deeply meaningful and I choose to believe it, as it teaches me to be humble and hope for miracles, myself.

I love that Christmas comes at the end of the year, in the dead and cold of winter.  We’ve worked so hard and now must persevere through a season of frozen cessations.  The gardens are all dormant, the annuals are long frozen dead, and the perennials are all retreated and hanging on for the possibility of rebirth anew come spring.  It’s tough going for birds and wildlife as they scramble to find food in the snow-covered ground and in hibernating trees.

We, too, must struggle to stay alive in this frozen cold that winter brings.  We work to find enough food and to maintain the shelter that home provides.  We, too, are kinds of outcasts looking for change and transcendence from problems in a world that is often unforgiving and unrelentingly hard.

That we have God with us, in us, Who offers us the possibility of life and survival against all odds is the central meaning of my existence.