I was struggling to think about what to write about for this Christmas. Surely, so much has been said already: the coming of the Saviour, incarnation, grace, God’s love, and so on. But frankly, while I wouldn’t detract from these topics, they are overdone. I could write you a Catholic Hallmark card anytime. But as I was reading a book a couple of months ago, I came across an idea that really struck me. The book in question is called The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life, and it is an excellent and very accessible read. Chinese philosophy is so unique, after all, that it can be difficult to penetrate its mindset. It is not always concerned with the same big questions as Western philosophy often is, such as, “What is virtue?” In fact, the author stresses that Confucius, who was perhaps the most influential Chinese philosopher, was often concerned with the little questions, such as, “Why is it that we do that?” His approach to philosophy is remarkably psychoanalytic, and it informs the point that it is our everyday habits—many of which we don’t think about at all—that truly shape who we are.

One of the things that interested Confucius was ritual. By ritual, of course, he is not exclusively referring to religious or state-sponsored rites, such as a Sunday church service or the oath one takes in a court of law. (It’s especially unlikely he would have meant the former, since he wasn’t Christian, although ancient China did have its kind of “religious” ritual as well.) Rather, by ritual what he meant is that which displaces us from our everyday in a role that is different from our usual one. These roles enable us to act “as if” we were someone else, or some other kind of person: the proud person, for example, may act as a humble man, or the glutton may act as a man ready to give sacrifice. There are a myriad of examples. Even something as simple as an “I love you” exchanged between two lovers, who likely struggle to act as lovingly as they should at all times, can be conceived as a kind of ritual. These roles, of course, exist only temporarily during the time the ritual takes place; but by embodying them frequently, if only for short periods, perhaps one takes something with them into their ordinary, messy lives. Perhaps you’ve heard it said, “Try to smile for 30 seconds, and it will become a real one.” Ritual works in much the same way.

Life is messy, after all, but one of the greatest things about Christmas is that it is a time when ordinary life is put on pause. Today, more likely than any other day, people will be going home to their families and/or friends, many of whom they haven’t seen in a long while. In the morning, they’ll gather by the Christmas tree to exchange gifts. They’ll sit down together for a proper dinner, when usually they’d be doing as many families now do: sitting in a room watching television, or worse yet, sitting apart and doing their own independent media things. Or, as in my family’s homeland, they’ll gather to watch the King give his annual Christmas speech. Christmas is replete with rituals that take us away from ordinary life, which gives us time to embody those roles that we might take for granted in our busy lives: our roles as parents, as a spouse, a child, a partner, a friend, and so on. We cannot live these roles perfectly all of the time, nor should we be expected to. Christmas can’t come everyday. It is simply a fact of life that human affairs are complicated, but by remembering these roles of ours in these important moments, perhaps we will also remember them a little more as we approach Boxing Day as well as during the year to come.

So, gather around the Christmas tree! Exchange your gifts! Pull crackers with your family, and enjoy your holiday meal together! Have the merriest of Christmases, and be sure to take that merriment with you into the new year!