It felt like Christmas morning!
Is there any other phrase that can better convey a feeling of excitement and wonder?
– “I went into a new store today.”
– “Oh yeah?” (yawn)
– “It felt like Christmas morning.”
– “Really? Tell me about it!”
If you were like me as a kid, just the thought of Christmas morning had the same effect as eating Fun Dip, Smarties, grape taffy, and a frozen Snickers with your friends at the public pool in July. Watching us run around, all hopped up on sugar, compelled my best friend’s mom to say to my mom, “Doreen… they’re animals.”
That youthful excitement is why I love the movie “Elf.” Will Ferrell is a 6’3” man, named Buddy, who was accidentally raised as an elf at the North Pole. He knows he doesn’t fit in with the other elves, so he decides to travel to New York City to locate his real father. That’s when we see what it would be like if our childhood innocence never disappeared with age.
Buddy gets excited over the simplest of things, like running through a revolving door several times until it makes him dizzy. The thought of seeing Santa sends him into a joyful orbit. He loves talking to complete strangers who show no interest in talking to him. His four main food groups are candy, candy canes, candy corns, and syrup. There is fun to be found everywhere he turns. Sounds familiar? That’s how we all used to be.
I heard a Christian podcast that talked about how we experience “wonder” at different stages in our lives. When we’re kids, a simple balloon can provide hours of fun. As teenagers, the balloon has become boring, but driving a car is exhilarating. As adults, driving becomes just a means of transportation. New technology gets us excited again, only to fade with familiarity and time. The older we get, the more it takes for us to experience that same sense of wonder.
There is, however, one thing in this world that is big enough to give us that breathtaking wonder throughout our lives: God.
I’ve always loved the question posed in Psalm 8:3-4, which says “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?”
The Creator of the universe made us, loves us, and died on the cross for us. That’s incredible. That’s wonderful! It should give us that ‘Christmas morning’ feeling all year long – at any age.
No sugar needed.
– Ed Doney, Staff Writer
