Treat Every Day Like Christmas

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Okay, so maybe Christmas is technically over, but since we are now officially treating every day like Christmas...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

I knew I wanted to do at least one blog post about Christmas and I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I've spent basically the whole month of December trying to think of exactly what I wanted to say. And you know what I came up with?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I was stressing out really bad because it was Christmas and I was focused on getting presents for everyone and I was stressed about school and doctors appointments and I was trying to think of a good Christmas themed story that I could talk about and for some reason I could not think of a single story.

I thought of taking an easy route and just going with the classic, "What Does Christmas Mean To You" topic. And of course when I think of what Christmas means to me, I think of Jesus Christ. I think of his birth and his life and how much he has done for all of us. I also think about my family and our traditions.

Every Christmas Eve we go to my Grandma's house and have dinner and play games. Then when we get home, my dad reads one of our Christmas books and my mom reads the Nativity story from the scriptures and then all of us kids sleep on the floor in my room.

And this year, by 'kids' I mean my 26, 23, 22, and 21 year old siblings.

Another topic I considered writing about about is the Light the World campaign that the church has recently started. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this, it's basically a 25 day service calendar. There's a specific topic each day from December 1st - December 25th and they give you a few different ideas that relate to that topic on how to help others. It's a super awesome campaign and if you want more information about it you can go to lds.org!

I thought about all of these different topics I could write about, but nothing really stuck out to me. None of them really felt right. Then randomly a few days ago, I remembered something that happened last year around Christmas. And I was really surprised that I hadn't thought about it sooner because this event honestly had such a huge impact on me.

Last year in December, the young woman in my ward put on a puppet show at a place for special needs adults. We practiced a few weeks beforehand, and we even made little hand puppets to give out to all the people there.

The puppet show was pretty simple. It was about a puppet named Joy who was looking for Christmas spirit. Every time she found some Christmas spirit, she would grow bigger and bigger and by the end of the puppet show, we had one of the girls dressed in a full body Joy costume!

For the puppet show, all the girls split up into groups and we each had our own little part to put together. My group did a hula dance to the song, 'Mele Kalikimaka' while I danced around and pretended to play my ukulele! At the end of the show when the life-size Joy came out, we gave a puppet to every adult for them to keep and sing some Christmas songs with us.

If I'm being honest, the entire show was kind of embarrassing. I was dancing around in a Hawaiian shirt with a green ukulele, basically making a fool of myself.

But I would do the whole thing again in a heartbeat.

Those people were so happy. The looks on their faces were absolutely priceless. Even though I didn't know them, I automatically fell in love with them. After our puppet show we had a chance to hang out and talk with the special needs adults and they were the nicest, happiest, most grateful people. Some of them were non-verbal, but they just kept smiling and playing with their puppets and giving all of us hugs.

I was talking with one of my leaders after we left and told her how much fun I had and how rewarding it felt to make those special souls so happy. I asked if we could maybe come back another time and do something for them again.

My leader said that she talked with one of the main volunteers who said that December is their favorite time of year because they have so many people who come and bring gifts or put on shows for the adults. But every other time of the year, they basically get nothing.

No visitors. No gifts. No puppet shows.

In the movie 'Elf', one of their rules is to "Treat every day like Christmas". I think that should be a rule for everyone. If we would treat every day like Christmas, just imagine how much better our lives would be!

We would make an effort to spend much more time with family. We would 'Light the World' by doing one simple act of service every day. We would volunteer more, and visit those in need. We would help our neighbor and go out of our way more often just to make others smile. But most importantly, we would remember Christ more. We would think about his birth and his life and how much he has done for all of us.

I know it's hard to treat every day like Christmas, especially when it's the middle of June and there's no snow or decorations or Christmas music on the radio. You probably don't have family in town and there's no one ringing your doorbell to carol and give you cookies.

Maybe there isn't any of that stuff in the middle of June, but you know what there is?

There are people in need. There are neighbors who need help. There are places who need volunteers and visitors to come and put on a puppet show for them. There are always endless opportunities to 'Light the World', not just in December.

I will always be grateful for that opportunity I had to dance around in a Hawaiian shirt and make a fool of myself, and I pray that I can have more opportunities like that in my life. And it's okay that December 25th has passed, because that just means that we can go ahead and really treat every day like Christmas.

Now please enjoy this video of my brother and I playing Jingle Bells on our ukuleles.

Merry Christmas!

❤ / Mickey