Laugh: Christmas Daybook 6
Watch: Darlene Love - All Alone On Christmas (A Very Merry Movie Mashup)
You might also enjoy:
Top 10 Most Rewatched Scenes in Christmas Movies
How They Made Elf (The Holiday Movie That Made Us)
Read: Psalm 20-21, 23, 27; Isaiah 25:1-9; Revelation 1:9-20; John 7:53-8:11
Pray: Select a passage from today's readings to personalize as a prayer. There's so much goodness in Psalm 23, 27, Isaiah 25, and the Revelation passage especially. If you have time, write what you see in the passages in your own words as a prayer. Shout your Amen and, perhaps, add a Hallelujah!
Do: Watch a movie that makes you laugh. Bonus points if it's a Christmas movie you haven't watched yet this year!
Just kidding about the bonus points. A Sacramental Life doesn't work on a points system. ;)
G.K. Chesterton has taught my family more about the true spirit of celebrating Christmas than almost any other teacher. (I've written about these lessons here and here.) Above all, this theologian/social critic/blustery Englishman insists that we Christians learn the discipline of not taking ourselves too seriously.
Here are a couple of examples from Advent and Christmas Wisdom from G.K. Chesterton:
"You cannot be too solemn about golf to be a good golfer; you can be a great deal too solemn about Christianity to be a good Christian. You may put into your neckties solemnity, and nothing but solemnity, because neckties are not the whole of your life—at least, I hope not. But in anything that does cover the whole of your life—in your philosophy and your religion—you must have mirth. If you do not have mirth, you will certainly have madness." (Lunacy and Letters)
People are losing the power to enjoy Christmas though identifying it with enjoyment. When once they lose sight of the old suggestion that it is all about something, they naturally fall into blank pauses of wondering what it is all about. To be told to rejoice on Christmas day is reasonable and intelligible, if you understand the name, or even look at the word. To be told to rejoice on the twenty-fifth of December is like being told to rejoice at quarter-past eleven on Thursday week. You cannot suddenly be frivolous unless you believe there is a serious reason for being frivolous." (“The New War on Christmas,” G.K.’s Weekly, December 26, 1925, quoted in Brave New Family.)
And, in case you need more, here's one of my favorite paragraphs from Orthodoxy:
"Seriousness is not a virtue. It would be a heresy, but a much more sensible heresy, to say that seriousness is a vice. It is really a natural trend or lapse into taking one's self gravely, because it is the easiest thing to do. It is much easier to write a good TIMES leading article than a good joke in PUNCH. For solemnity flows out of men naturally; but laughter is a leap. It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light. Satan fell by the force of gravity." (G.K. Chesterton: Orthodoxy.)
On the sixth day of Christmas, I'm giving you the gift of a collection of Chesterton's words on Christmas. Our first Christmas in Connecticut, I shared with our church a collection of essays and poems from the out-of-print anthology The Spirit of Christmas: Stories, Poems & Essays. You can download, print, or read the series on my website here. Enjoy!
p.s., I'd love to hear what makes you laugh? Drop me a comment below.
