This heavy blanket that hangs like night,
Weighted but not comforting,
Its tangled threads impossible to unravel:
Even this is you.

The often inaccessible
Deep Blue of the soul,
Obscured and fathomless:
Even this is love.

The sharp pains of childbirth,
The bitter cold of the stable,
The fear and trepidation Mary must’ve felt,
The plight of the immigrant:
Even this is Christmas.

You are a tapestry of all your thoughts
And feeling and dreams,
The sweet and the bitter,
The shadow and the light.
Each part just as beautiful as the next,
Each strand relying on the other.
The indigo blues of you are
As worthy as the sunniest golds.

Some years are hard.
Some holidays won’t feel jolly.
Some days are best kept
In quiet contemplation.

But none of that
Makes this time less holy.
None of that
Makes you less worthy,
None of that
Makes this any less Christmas.
We have always retreated
In the darkness,
Across faiths and cultures,
Taking time to remember
What is important,
What is true,
What is worthy.
Now, more than ever,
We can see that clearly.
We know, as we didn’t before,
The beauty of our own inner world.

Even in this longest night,
Which we experience
Both together and alone,
We are still love.
We are still holy.
We are still Christmas.