First, it’s a month before Christmas, right after Thanksgiving. Lights and decorations begin to go up around your home and around town. The air gets just a little brisker and the people around you start to get a little more pleasant knowing their distant family and friends will be coming back into their lives soon, even for just a little while. Even in the freezing cold, the lights on the trees and decorations around the house seem to radiate a warmth that sparks a feeling of Christmas spirit within us. You can’t pinpoint exactly what is changing in the air when Christmas is upon us, but the feeling is like no other. As you get older, this feeling begins to fade and it may not come every Christmas season but every now and again, a movie, song, party, or snowfall will spark that spirit and feeling of Christmas that you had as a child. This is the first Christmas miracle we often neglect.

Second, another miracle that doesn’t occur every year. It’s Christmas Eve. Your distant family and friends have come home or you have traveled to them. You’re at a party or just home with your family and in the midst of the evening look outside to see the smallest flake of snow fall from the sky. More snow follows and before you know it, a perfect Christmas landscape is in view from your window. You step outside and feel each flake fall on your face. Whether you choose to take a walk, build a snowman, partake in a snowball fight, or simply go back inside and enjoy the view from the warmth of your home, no one can deny that this is indeed a Christmas miracle.

Third, a miracle that occurs on Christmas morning. A miracle that can happen every Christmas whether you are 2, 12, 20, or 50. You come down to gifts around the Christmas tree. For many, children especially, you are most excited about what gifts you will be receiving. However, the feeling you get when you pass out your first Christmas gift to a loved one or a friend and they open it with a smile on their face is often forgotten. It is the simplest way to remind yourself that you have the power to make someone else happy. Even with the smallest gift, whether it be a colored picture from a child to their mother or a new video game from a mother to her son, we have the power to turn any sadness or pain or anger or loss from the past year to happiness in the form of a smile, even if it is just for a moment and if this is not a miracle in itself, I don’t know what is.

While the first two miracles are unique to the Christmas, the third is a gift and miracle that can happen at any time of the year. Giving does not always have to be materialistic. It can be in the form of a promise, an “I love you,” or a compliment. It is never the wrong time of the year to try to put a smile on someone else’s face and turn their sadness to happiness so remember this as you approach the Christmas season from January to December. You have the power to perform miracles at any time of the year. You never know who might need one.