Every Day is Christmas

Friends,

In the tradition I come from, December 25 has long been held as a holy day. We mark it. We remember it. We gather around it with meaning and memory.

And yet, I often wonder what time itself looked like at the moment we now point to as the human birth of the Christ. What calendar named that day? What month held it? I sense that December as we know it may not have existed at all.

What matters is that this moment we now celebrate intentionally falls near the winter solstice—the deep hinge of the year, when night lingers the longest, when the world seems suspended between darkness and the return of light.

Over time, we’ve turned this day into something singular and spectacular—a spiritual finish line. As if once the Christ arrives, everything is settled, complete, and resolved.

But one of the quieter truths hidden beneath the celebration is this: the arrival of the Christ was never meant to change reality—it was meant to reveal it.

In one human life, we were shown what has always been true. It’s as if the Divine knew we needed a face to speak to, feet to walk alongside us, someone we could recognize and fall in love with. And perhaps it became one of us to remind us that it had been us all along—hidden in plain sight, breathing through every life, waiting not to be worshiped from a distance, but remembered from within. Nothing changed in the heart of the Divine; it simply became visible.

I remember learning from one of the great sages I’ve had the privilege to study with, Fr. Richard Rohr, founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation. He taught that we don’t have to wait until December 25 to celebrate the Christ—another name for everything—because the Christ has been here all along, was here all along, and continues to be here all along.

And if that’s true, then perhaps the message has always been simple: His law is love, and His gospel is peace. This was meant to rewrite history and still has the capacity to do so.

So if you need to wait until December 25, that’s okay.

But just know this: you can celebrate Christmas every day. Every hour. Every moment.

Because the Christ—the face of Love itself—is not arriving from somewhere else. He is already pouring himself out as your very life.

Every day is Christmas when we remember this.

Warmly,

Ashton