Yuletide Renewal — Day Four
I’ve been thinking a lot about the spirit of Christmas lately.
Not the twinkly-lights, everything-is-magical, Hallmark-movie version…
but the deeper story underneath the stories we keep telling every year.
Because when you strip them down — The Grinch, A Christmas Carol, It’s a Wonderful Life, even the classic holiday rom-com — they’re all telling the same thing.
They’re not really about Christmas.
They’re about what happens when a heart closes…
and what happens when, slowly and imperfectly, it opens again.
The Grinch doesn’t hate Christmas.
He’s armored.
He once loved it, and something hurt him.
Scrooge isn’t evil.
His heart broke long ago, and money became safer than connection.
George Bailey isn’t flawed.
He’s exhausted, overwhelmed, and convinced he’s alone.
And the “magic” in these stories isn’t that life suddenly becomes perfect.
It’s that something softens.
There’s a remembering.
A moment where the person realizes they belong again… and love becomes accessible.
The daily practice of reopening
Lately, the process of going from Grinch to open-hearted feels less like a once-a-year transformation and more like a daily — sometimes hourly — practice.
I can wake up resourced and open…
and then read one email.
Hit one traffic light.
Have one conversation.
And suddenly I’m back in full steal Christmas and retreat to my cave mode.
If I’m honest, I don’t usually wake up cheerful.
I’ve said this before… my default setting when I wake up is mildly grumpy. The inner Grinch is strong before coffee.
Becoming the loving, present, inspired human I want to be isn’t automatic for me.
It’s something I have to resource.
That’s actually one of the reasons I started this podcast — to support that remembering in myself. To ground myself in goodness so I can choose who I want to be, again and again.
Because the heart doesn’t open once and stay open forever.
It opens.
It closes.
It opens again.
That rhythm doesn’t mean you’re failing.
It means you’re human.
A parenting moment (and fart jokes)
I was thinking about this recently with my kids and what I want them to understand about Christmas.
I had this very noble, evolved parenting moment where I sat them down and said,
“The real spirit of Christmas is about giving, not receiving.”
I asked, “What are some ways we could give to our neighbors or friends this year?”
I imagined this profound conversation unfolding.
Instead… it devolved almost immediately into jokes about giving farts to the neighbors.
Poop jokes followed.
My spouse jumped in.
Three boys. Zero reverence.
And I felt it — that tightening in my chest.
That judgmental, grinchy part of me wanting to clamp down and correct the moment.
And then I caught myself.
What was my agenda?
Why was I trying to force meaning instead of letting connection happen?
Could I just open my heart… laugh… be with them… love them as they are?
That, right there, was the practice.
Love doesn’t wait for perfection
When I think about Christianity — stripped of centuries of moral overlay — it’s not really about being good or bad.
It’s about choosing love inside of darkness.
The story doesn’t begin with angels singing in the sky.
It begins in a stable.
At night.
In the cold.
With no room at the inn.
Love doesn’t wait for ideal conditions.
People don’t have to be ready.
Hearts don’t have to be healed.
Love comes anyway.
At its core, the message isn’t “earn love.”
It’s you already belong.
Eat with the outcasts.
Touch the untouchable.
Refuse to harden in the face of cruelty.
Choose love again.
Not because the world is always safe…
but because love is our birthright.
And maybe that’s why these stories land so deeply in our bodies.
Because we recognize the moment — the one where we’re tired, guarded, withdrawn… and something gently asks us to soften instead of shutting down.
The real miracle
The miracle isn’t that the heart opens and stays open forever.
The miracle is that it opens at all.
Especially after grief.
After loss.
After war, famine, genocide.
After losing a child.
After heartbreak that felt unbearable.
It’s a miracle that we open again.
So if you notice your heart opening and closing — daily, hourly, seasonally — there is nothing wrong with you.
You don’t have to be cheerful to be loving.
You don’t have to stay soft to be good.
You don’t have to live in constant openness to be worthy.
You only need the willingness to let your heart reopen when it’s ready.
Even a little.
That’s the story these myths keep telling.
And maybe we keep returning to them because something inside us remembers… and that remembering brings us back to life.
If this season has your heart feeling tired, guarded, or tender, you’re not failing.
You’re human.
And you get to keep resourcing yourself — again and again.
If you want support with that, you don’t have to do it alone.
You can explore therapy, coaching, and attachment-based support at
👉 www.therapytothrive.com
Your heart doesn’t have to stay open.
It just has to be allowed to open again.
