Christmas is for runners!

Happy Christmas, each and every one!  Tis the season to run and enjoy the mild Virginia weather and get excited for THE BEST holiday of the year!

I think I love running more than I love Christmas but it's hard because I think I'd miss Christmas more if it were gone than running.  Christmas is just in itself the most amazing idea ever.  It's family and spiritual remembrance, it's historical and cultural and meaningful in every way.  It's commercial and interpersonal and delightful and delicious.

I love Christmas.

Christmas is about things I care about: people.  A baby.  An "unexpected pregnancy."  Deferring judgment and pressing on.  Rejection, rejoicing, and long trips....

Christmas is about journey and beauty and pressing onward.  Mary and Joseph did this; Simeon and Anna did this; The Magi did this; Elisabeth and Zechariah did this.  Christmas is the real, hard facts of life with the real, hard Savior of the world.

Sometimes in my life, running takes the back-burner for these things.  Fortunately this year isn't that year because I do have time amid clinical rotations to run on the parkway and on the greenways and burn of Christmas foods, but some years this isn't the case.  When I observe Christmas more than the daily ritual of running, I always know I made the right choice.

So, this Christmas, I want to be generous and give to those who need love amid tough choices.  There was only one immaculate conception, but there is no conception that escapes God's notice or his desire to love.  And that's the beauty of Christmas.  God came so he'll come again and love families.  What's not to love about Christmas?