“Oh why can’t every day be like Christmas? For if every day could be just like Christmas, what a wonderful world this would be.”

—If Every Day Was Like Christmas (Red West; 1965)

It’s two days post-Christmas. The tree, if it’s still up, is dropping needles faster than raindrops falling in a monsoon, showering the opened boxes of gifts still sitting beneath it. Maybe the Christmas CDs have been relegated to the back of the shelf and decorations are finding their way into storage boxes. If you’re lucky, cousin Eddie and family have lumbered off in their over-sized tin can on wheels.

Are you happy? Sad? Melancholic?

For some, the best thing about Christmas is when it’s over: People in the throes of grief, job loss, serious illness, or financial ruin. When you’re despondent, it’s just human nature for the joy and glitter of the season to seemingly magnify your angst.

For some, it’s a time for melancholy. Maybe it’s the last Christmas a child is home before leaving the “nest,” or it’s the Christmas the veracity of Santa’s existence comes into serious question by the youngest family member. For you, the secular celebration of the season–the gleam in your child’s eyes when the word “Santa” is mentioned–will never be the same again.

For others, the joy and good cheer of the season linger: Diamonds now adorn fiancees’ fingers and shiny new cars sit in driveways. The 21st century version of our “back in the day” 3-speed Schwinn bike stands tall in some garages, sleek and roadworthy, yet likely to never be adorned with baseball cards clothes-pinned to the spokes. (Remember, guys?)

But is this really Christmas? Yes, for many it’s a secular, market-driven holiday. Nothing more. The period when merchants “make their hay” in the shopping frenzy so characteristic of the season. It’s a hectic time for decorating, partying, and stressing over what gifts to purchase. A commercial holiday…and when it’s over, it’s over.

Nothing wrong with all of that, except for the “stressing” part. But there’s much more. It’s possible to enjoy the secular Christmas and still honor the actual reason for the season.

For believers, the real Christmas is the story from over two thousand years ago. Those Jews who’d listened to the prophets and “waited on the Lord” for centuries were aptly rewarded by the birth of Jesus–God incarnate among us. And He came not as a conquering king, but as a vulnerable newborn–a descendant of royalty and rebels, prophets and prostitutes. He came into the world to be like all of us and, thirty years later, began teaching all of us to be like Him.

Hollywood has glamorized the Biblical story, but there’s not much glamour in a pregnant teenager and a confused husband-to-be traveling cross country on foot and by donkey. Their destination: A small town in the hill country of Judah, where a poor excuse for a barn served as Mary’s labor and delivery suite.

Jesus came into our world as helpless as any newborn, but still powerful enough to lure shepherds from their fields and Magi from faraway countries, and his very presence was threatening enough to evoke the paranoia of a king.

Thus began the seminal thirty-three years of the two most recent millennia. Immanuel. God with us. The fulfillment of the promise of the Old Testament prophets. We Christians believe this Good News is the true reason for the season.

So, the songwriter plaintively asks, “Why can’t every day be like Christmas?” The answer: It can be! Thanks to the Good News, we can, and should, celebrate Christmas every day!