Don’t Pack Away Baby Jesus!

I always feel just a little guilty when, soon after the Epiphany, I pack up our Christmas things for another year. The lights, the ornaments, the stockings, and the magnetic wooden Advent calendar all go into plastic storage bins and into the back of a bedroom closet until next December.

I usually console myself with the thought that another Christmas season will be here before I know it, but I pause before putting away the rubber doll Baby Jesus we keep in a manger bed filled with soft yarn under the tree.

How can I put away Jesus?

When my kids sometimes sigh and wish aloud that it "could be Christmas all year long" I tell them that it can. In fact, we aren't meant to put away Jesus at all—not even when Christmas is over. We are supposed to keep Christ in Christmas all year long.

I'm not talking about a rubber doll, naturally, but the real Christ child who comes to us at Christmas. After spending four weeks of Advent preparing our hearts and our homes for Jesus, though, what do we do with him when he comes?

Much about Christmastime feels good. It's fun to focus on decorations, parties, giving gifts, and finding new ways of being generous with others. But after the last present is unwrapped and that warm and glowing feeling begins to fade, what do we do with Baby Jesus then? Do we keep him at the center of our hearts and our homes, or do we pack him away with the crocheted snowflakes and singing ceramic snowman?

For the perfect example of how to hold onto Baby Jesus, we need look no further than the very first person to ever hold him—the Blessed Virgin Mary.

At that first Christmas, Mary was quietly focused on her own home and family. A few months earlier found her singing the Magnificat, publicly praising God's goodness and mercy, but this is a quieter, more introverted Mary we meet here.

“And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart” (Luke 2:19).

Mary recognized the important work she was being called to do in her own home and family that first Christmas. And each of us is called to focus on the same. After the parties this year, we can put away our Christmas things, but we can plan to keep Christmas too. We can invite Christ to not only come into our hearts and our homes, but to stay there.

The new year presents an opportunity to set the tone for an entire year in our domestic churches by making Christ the center of our hearts.

What kinds of changes might Christ be calling you to make this year? What kind of generosity might he inspire in your home? Whatever kind of Christmas we enjoyed this year, the real task of keeping Christ in our hearts begins right here, right now—in the heart of our homes and in the midst of our lives.