For those who celebrate this holiday and the season surrounding it, Christmas brings the expectation of a sense of magic and wonder. We grow up hearing that the Christmas season is "the most wonderful time of the year".

This holiday that has for centuries been centered around the birth of Jesus Christ, but that also has roots associated with brightening the dark Winter, today celebrates any combination of meaningful things (depending on who is celebrating). A sense of magic, miracles, wonder, and the shared and heartfelt wish for peace-on-Earth are what we expect of this special time of year. Alas, life does not always give us the luxury of a season of nothing but joy and wonder. With its apparently relentless "commitment" to things not-so-magical and merry, real life can sometimes throw some very large monkey wrenches into that sense of magic and merriment we're all expected to experience. That isn't to say that magic and wonder are not parts of real life, but sometimes real life (and our oh-so-real troubled hearts) can have a way of making sure we're denied those things at least for a while. On those Christmases when magic and merriment can't possibly be ours, each time we are wished, "Merry Christmas", it can seem as if we are reminded that ours cannot be. On those years when Christmas cannot possibly merry, we are usually almost accustomed to not having merriment; but, oh, how - no matter what difficulties we face - we so often do long for some Christmas magic.

Christmas time can be darkened when, for example, we have recently lost a loved one. Illness in the family, money troubles, being separated from loved ones, family discord, or recent divorce are other realities that have the potential of dampening Christmas spirit. In fact, there can be those Christmas seasons during which more than one of these difficult circumstances can exist together, and have the potential of robbing us of every last shred of Christmas magic. More difficult and challenging is the fact that life can bring us whole strings of Christmases in a row for which finding magic and wonder can seem impossible. An often overlooked group of people in the "can't-find-the-magic club" are teens and young adults who may generally be happy people, but who are too old for the "Santa magic" for themselves but too young to see and feel that magic through the eyes of their own children.

There can be times when we'd like to completely ignore the whole holiday season and Christmas day, itself but the world won't seem to let us. It may be our responsibility to make other family members' Christmases magical (particularly children), or at least not to make others' holiday even more gloomy. Unless our circumstances are particularly fresh and extreme, we usually choose to go through the motions.

Christmas music we hear everywhere can just be irritating. We may remain immune to the lights on the town common that, for others, brighten the long December nights. "Getting out the Christmas decorations" can turn into "dragging out all the Christmas junk", and putting them up is nothing but "yet more work for no good reason". When our lack of magic is shared by family and friends they aren't necessarily much help. When we seem to be the only one in our circle of family and friends who can't find any magic we must choose whether to remain silent (and feel isolated) or inflict our gloom upon others' Christmas.

I don't happen to recall whether it was the Charlie Brown (Charles Schultz) Easter special or Christmas special in which Linus remarks to Charlie Brown that Charlie is the only one Linus knows who can manage to turn something nice like Christmas (or Easter) into a problem. That is one of the most memorable lines among the Charlie Brown holiday specials, because whether we feel the magic or not Christmas is, as Linus described it, "a nice thing". We just need to learn not to expect too much from it, particularly when it comes at a time when we're not really in the mood for it.

The Christmas season is a time when so many people try to create magic and beauty everywhere. That shared aim, alone, is something to view as just a little magical and miraculous. Millions of people in any number of places across the world decide to decorate homes and streets and cities with lights, ribbons, wreaths, and decorated trees - all in an effort to brighten the season. This holiday that is centered around being with family and friends, peace on Earth, and the beautiful story of a baby born to humble circumstances who grew up to try to bring peace to the hearts of so many is, again as Linus said, a nice thing.

Some Christmases are better for us than others. Sometimes we need to look a little harder to find just a little magic. While (particularly when we're children) Christmases in the past may have felt like one, big, season of magic-everywhere; we may find that the magic can only be felt in small doses (if any at all). Sometimes it can help if we do make the extra effort to put up some particularly nice decorations or make it a point to listen to some particularly beautiful or cheerful Christmas music. Sometimes it can help if we stay up long past when everyone else has gone to sleep, and spend a little "alone time" by the light of the Christmas tree and allowing our tired hearts to just enjoy a brief respite. In other words, sometimes we have to settle for the quiet but warming moments of appreciating the beauty of Christmas, along with those people and things we do have in this life. Letting a troubled or broken heart take a rest from its woes isn't a shallow thing to do. Even the most troubled hearts need a rest; and even those who are in the ugliest of circumstances can benefit from seemingly tiny moments of beauty.

There are, of course, those Christmas seasons in which there won't even be any fleeting moments of beauty when the magic is too hard to come by. There will always (at least for most people) be those times when there is no point in even trying to find Christmas spirit, and that's when we need to lower our expectations. There are times when those lights on the town common or the lighting-of-the-giant-Christmas-tree ceremonies just don't elicit a shred of magic for us. Christmas dinner may be ignored, spent alone, or spent seated among a group of family members who feel equally as without magic as we do.

When we're having one of those years lowering the expectation of finding magic to an expectation of appreciating those we have and what we have, as well as any Christmas beauty that does exist around us, is the only thing we can do to prevent disappointment. We can't live in the grips of a tough (or at least less-than-magical) reality all year round and then expect that reality to "lift" or turn to magic in December. Much of the disenchantment many of us can feel at Christmas has less to do with not being able to find any magic, than with our expectation that we may miraculously feel magic at Christmas. We need to know that it sometimes has to be enough to find ways to celebrate a less-than-magical Christmas. Magic, after all, is not something we can always create for ourselves or others; and it isn't something that automatically appears to us because we, or the calendar, decide it should.

As children, we often felt the magic of leaving cookies out in the anticipation of Santa's visit and finding only crumbs on the plate Christmas morning. As grown-ups, we may feel that hint of magic when we see those lights on the town common or attend a Christmas performance. There are times when we won't. Still, there are always miracles to be seen around us. Those miracles may seen in children. They may be seen in loved ones who have against all odds remained with us for another year. They may be seen in families who managed to stay together and whole in spite of an awful lot of things that can seem to try to pull them apart. Miracles may be seen in the survivors of terrible storms, and they may be seen in the fact that the human heart and spirit regardless of how broken somehow and so often seem to heal and feel magic again.

In life we usually learn that there is no Santa who comes to eat the cookies, and that "every-year-without-fail" kind of magic is for children. We learn, when we grow up, that magic doesn't always come at Christmas time. Sometimes it comes at other times during the year. We learn, too, that we often have to work to create our own sense of magic and wonder, and sometimes we need to look a little harder to find some. There are, of course, those times when life is being kind and when Christmas magic just happens for us, as it did when we were children.

When it is clear that Christmas time is fast approaching and that it may well be a year of no magic for us, we sometimes need to realize that such Christmases do happen and that we need to celebrate what we do have in ways that may not be magical; but that are, nonetheless, rare and treasured gifts. We need to realize that feeling magic is not something we can or should expect. After all, it wouldn't be "magic" if it were.

A few Christmases ago I had one of those years of going through the motions and being acutely and appropriately aware that there would be no Christmas wonder and magic for me. As expected, the season and the day came and went without my having felt the least bit “Christmas-y” for even one minute. It was with tremendous relief for me that the dreaded holiday finally passed, and I could look forward to a new and better year. New Year’s Day came and went, and all that was left over Christmas were a few wreaths on neighborhood doors.

It was in the middle of January when a sparkling blanket of snow fell in mid evening. In my wish to bring out my kitchen trash before more snow fell, I headed out to the trash containers in the yard. Throughout the neighborhood the front porch and driveway lights made the snow crystals sparkle, and in the silence of the night I suddenly felt that “magic of Christmas” come over me. I’m not a particularly big fan of snow and cold, so I don’t know why (particularly since I went out in shirt sleeves) this overpowering sense of Christmas came over me. It occurred to me that the very absence of decorations could have been such a relief that my mood improved. That’s the thing about magic, though: As I said earlier, it comes when we least expect it.

For whatever reason my moment of Christmas came that January night, it felt to me as if it was one of those unexpected messages from God (or the universe) that my life would not remain without magic, even if Christmas had come and gone without any.

Christmas, for those of us who celebrate it and expect so much of it, is a part of life, just as December is. It is too much for any of us to expect life to bring magic “as scheduled”, so we just need to remember all those times when – Christmas lights or no Christmas lights – magic has surprised us and reminded us that even on cold Winter nights there can be a little magic.