Joy is what Christmas is all about. It is an attempt to break routine and the drab environment of our lives. It is a candle in the window, a piece of tinsel on the tree, and a ribbon on a gift. It is the spirit’s rebellion against the colorless, fact-oriented course of our existence. It is laughter in the face of our pomposity; it is a shout of poetry in the midst of plodding prose. It is a moment of myth interrupting the pedestrian pattern of our reality. It is the song of the angels in a world that doesn’t believe in either songs or angels. In short, Christmas is joy.

The ancient words stand. “Good news of great joy!” No matter how hard we try, no matter how sophisticated our sobriety, these words will not be denied. Niether war nor hunger, neither poverty nor death, neither terror nor the hardness of hears can separate us from joy that is Christmas. We decorate out tree, nag our wreath, mail our greeting, and sing our song because this is the seaon of joy.

It is written that when the angel announced the great joy a multitude of heavenly host praised God. That still happens.

– Rev. John A. Taylor
from “Tis the Season, c. First Unitarian Society of Ithaca