Every year, the question shows up again.

Not loudly.

Not dramatically.

Just a small wondering that drifts in sometime between the early decorations and the endless lists.

Where is Christmas?

The song asks it with innocence—almost like a child looking around a room that feels different than they expected. And maybe that’s why it stays with us. Because many of us are still quietly asking the same thing, only now we do it in our heads while standing in line, while scrolling, while trying to feel something we remember but can’t quite touch.

We look for it in the usual places.

The lights.

The music.

The wrapped boxes.

And yet something feels thin.

Not wrong—just incomplete.

Christmas used to feel easier to find. Maybe because we weren’t trying so hard. Maybe because joy came to us without effort. It lived in small things: the smell of the tree, the sound of someone humming in the kitchen, the way the house felt fuller simply because everyone was home.

Now we chase it.

We plan it.

We schedule it.

We compare it.

And somewhere in all that movement, the feeling slips past us.

But maybe Christmas hasn’t gone anywhere.

Maybe it’s just quieter now.

Maybe it’s sitting in the moments that don’t photograph well. In the tired laugh shared over a messy table. In choosing presence over perfection—even when the room is loud and the heart is carrying more than it wants to admit.

This season also has a way of bringing old things to the surface. Unspoken hurts. Conversations we avoided. Apologies we hoped time would take care of for us.

We often wait for forgiveness to arrive from the other side. We hope someone will soften first, understand first, reach out first. But Christmas—at its truest—asks something more inward.

Not “Why can’t they forgive me?”

But “What can I do to make forgiveness easier to offer?”

It’s a quieter kind of courage. The kind that looks honestly at our own hands before pointing to someone else’s. The kind that says, I may not be able to fix everything, but I can take responsibility for the part that belongs to me.

Maybe that’s how we begin the new year well—not by demanding clean slates, but by offering humility. By becoming safer places for grace to land.

“Where is Christmas?”

The song never rushes to answer. And maybe that’s the point.

Because Christmas isn’t something you find all at once. It doesn’t announce itself. It arrives slowly, often unnoticed, in the ordinary spaces we tend to overlook.

It’s in kindness that costs us time.

In gentleness when we could be sharp.

In choosing repair over pride.

Maybe it was never lost.

Maybe it’s been waiting—

For us to slow down.

To soften.

To look inward.

Joy doesn’t disappear.

It just learns how to whisper.

So as the season closes and a new year opens, maybe we remember that Emmanuel—God with us—doesn’t leave when Christmas ends.

Until next time,