Growing up I was always filled with amazement on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. There was a near palpable difference in the atmosphere that night and morning.I remember one Christmas Eve where it was so cold that the power lines beside our house snapped. The power company was out on Christmas Eve, very late, to fix the lines. Of course, they left footprints throughout the snow outside- which was excited because I don’t think we knew that they had been there. I was convinced that there was only one other person who could have made those footprints on Christmas Eve. I was saddened to hear it was the power company! But there was such great excitement.

After the presents are open, there is something almost mundane about Christmas Day. I say this in a good way. AS adults, we’re tired out from a late night and an early morning. The kids are either playing with their toys or getting tired. The whole day takes a different pace. Compared to the busyness of every other day- Christmas can almost feel mundane or slow at times. The rhythm is different.

I don’t know what Mary would have been doing when the Angel Gabriel appeared to her and told her that she would conceive a child who would be the Son of the Most High. Maybe she was feed her baby chickens. Perhaps she was taking a walk somewhere. My guess is that in her mind that day began just like any other day.

Out of the mundane, out of the routine, God broke into the world.

When I think about the shepherds who were in the fields watching their sheep by night, I wonder how mundane and boring that day began. They were going to be out in their fields all night. Maybe there would be some excitement and they’d have to fend off a predator. But it was night- everyone else was asleep.

Out of the mundane, out of the routine, God broke into the world.

Most of our lives can feel pretty mundane. We get up, go to work, make dinner, go to bed, and repeat. Over and over again. For many of us, we want to break free of the routine for something great. But here is the challenge: we can be so future focused; so focused on the next big thing that we miss how God is breaking into the mundane routines of our lives.

This is what happens at the first Christmas- an ordinary night; just another day in the fields for the Shepherds; just another newborn baby crying- or so it seemed. That night- “the eternal breaks through into the normal routines of daily life.” The Shepherds saw it- and yet how many others missed it?

On this Christmas Day, I am guessing that you have a routine for the day. I know we do. Wake up, gifts, breakfast, clean up, drive to see family, and on and on. On this sacred day, are we looking for God’s divine presence to come into our lives? Are we ready to respond?

Merry Christmas!