The Christmas Spirit

When barren trees are glittering

With winter’s early frost,

And every day is shorter than

The sunny days now gone,

They tell me that the time is ripe

To bloom with Christmas cheer,

To hang a wreath and celebrate

The holidays now near.

“The Christmas spirit is alive,”

They say. “What joy it brings!”

But when I ask them what it is,

They tell me different things.

Many tell me that the point

Is giving thoughtful gifts;

Others say the spirit is

Believing silly myths.

But when I contemplate the Christ

Who gives Christmas its name,

The one Saint Nicholas proclaimed

Before he soared to fame,

I look into a filthy trough

Where slobbering livestock feed,

And lying there amidst the filth,

The infant who made me.

I look into that infant’s face

And wonder at the thought

That all oppression, pain, and death,

This infant came to stop.

He is the King of Heaven and Earth,

The Author of all light,

The shining hero of a tale

He never had to write.

He fixes wounds no toy can fix,

Fills voids no meal can fill,

Dries tears that no one else could dry,

Breathes life against death’s chill.

I cannot understand how this

Frail infant in a trough

Made heavens, mountains, seas, and stars—

The ground I’m standing on.

The more I try to understand,

The more there’s mystery;

And in that quiet, reverent awe,

The Spirit comes to me.