Can Christmas Be the Spirit in Our Heart?

As Christmas approaches, I wonder—

can it truly be the spirit that lives in our heart?

I don’t know, not in the same way anymore, as the years quietly pass me by. I see Christmas trees glowing with bright lights, and of course I still love them—their soft twinkle reaching inward, touching something tender and familiar. I notice how beautifully a package can be wrapped, bows and ribbon placed with care, hoping the one who opens it will feel even a small moment of joy in the gift it is meant to be.

And yet, even as these moments lead us toward the festivities, the heart can still ache.

Perhaps it is the ache of remembering. Pieces of something once held so fully—something that made the season bright in a way that felt effortless. The warmth that seemed to live everywhere then, without asking to be summoned. Maybe it is the absence of certain people, or the quiet echo of moments in time that no longer return in the same form.

Or is it still searching for what may complete you?

Something simple, as Peace.

Are they faces we miss, voices we still hear in memory, hands that once wrapped gifts alongside ours? Are they moments when love felt simple, when anticipation came without sorrow attached, when Christmas arrived without asking us to carry so much history with it?

The decorations still shimmer. The lights still glow. Beauty still exists all around us. And yet, the heart notices what has changed, what has softened, what has been shaped by living and by loss.

Maybe the ache itself is part of the season now—not something to fix or hide, but something to hold gently. A reminder that Christmas once lived deeply within us, and perhaps still does, just differently. Not as innocence, but as remembrance. Not as certainty, but as quiet presence.

And so I wonder if Christmas is no longer about recreating what once was, but about allowing what remains to speak. About letting the light reach us where we are now, even if it falls across tenderness. About honoring the love that shaped us, and trusting that its spirit still lives—quietly, faithfully—within the heart that remembers, the one wanting peace.❤️