Abby has not traditionally been the sort of person to enjoy Christmas music. Maybe that’s because I tend to overplay one specific and incredible album (thanks Vince), or maybe it’s because most Christmas music is awful, or maybe it’s because this is the first Christmas where we’ve been thankful for something more than presents and family. Not that there’s anything really wrong with being grateful for those things, I’ll continue to be grateful for them.

And while it’s true that much of Christmas has been coopted by the capitalists and the marketing professionals, there remains a really splendid through line of gratitude and wonder at the change brought into the world by Christ and Christian thinking.

Most people tend to ignore that spine holding up the body of the holidays and our moral lives. To see it more as a cute anachronism from when people were stupider, something easily ignored to get to the real meat of it: giving and receiving gifts and eating food with family.

Again, these are good things. I’ll not complain about eating delicious food and sitting around a cozy place with people I love while receiving tender and thoughtful gifts I couldn’t or would rather not afford.

But to do all of that in the context of a universe governed not by chaos and meaninglessness, but by a Shepard? For all that gratitude to flow from us and around one another up to the person that made it possible? Well that’s a Good thing.

It breaks down the door of that cozy room, throws it open and makes the whole world cozy. It makes me want to go out and do more than I do, especially around this season.