Let your imagination run wild at Christmastime and beyond — It’s good for you!

Let your imagination run wild at Christmastime and beyond — It’s good for you!

Commentary by Lisa Ormond | FāVS News

For me, celebrating Christmas is all about recognizing ‘imagination’ still has a place in our society, our lives and especially during the Christmas season. This ‘notice’ came to me recently while wandering around on a poorly marked hiking trail deep in a wooded tree stand area in Hayden, Idaho. Odd, yes, but I’m a person who finds my imagination heightened when wandering aimlessly through any kind of nature spot. 

I was not lost, but I certainly was a bit baffled by where I was and how I was going to get back to the car before the light disappeared. This was because I had checked out from my imagination-gone-wild walk. I was consumed with thinking about the word imagination as I let my mind go rogue, free of home-care-responsibility burdens and task lists. 

While identifying faces in fallen Ponderosa Pine trees in front of me and noticing a stream of blue-colored sap tears on the side of a Larch standing tall on my side and seeing perfectly carved hearts in large rocks near my feet, my imagination was clearly on fire. 

In all this grandeur, my brain quickly switched to thinking about Christmas and what the season really offers and means. Shazam!

Keeping the imagination alive

As Americans, I believe many of us just allow and accept the make-believe of our all-absorbing Christmas season. We share with our children, “Yes! There is a Santa by golly, and he has flying reindeer. You bet!”  Spinning the imagination ribbon around the make-believe package is justifiably fun during Christmas for us adults.

Allowing the myth, the legend and the history of Jolly Saint Nick to continue in perpetuity alongside make-believe and the wonder of our imaginative worlds is something us Americans do well. I call this blending. 

We kind of like being Peter Pan and going back to the Never Never Land time of our childhood where imagination ruled supreme and was the foundation of almost every thought and action of our young being. 

Neurobiology researchers say let it fly!

Imagination is cool and needs to be embraced according to researchers. Go ahead, it’s healthy. It plays a huge role in today’s world from innovation to shaping empathetic leaders. We don’t want to squash it. Without it, we’d be sunk as a species on Earth. Researchers want us to know, too, imagination is a muscle that should be worked and not ignored for the good of society. We don’t have to give it up. That’s where Christmas comes in.

The Christmas story mystery

Christmas straddles imagination in lots of ways — not only with Santa Claus, the elves, the reindeer and the ability of Santa to deliver packages all over the world in stealth mode. But also, in the spiritual and deeply Christian realm surrounding the birth of Jesus Christmas story of 2,000 years ago.

Christ’s birth is well documented in the Bible and in many ways is wrapped in sacred mystery and wonder with the cornerstones being the unexplainable virgin birth of Jesus and that God became human on earth and walked among us from Christmas day forward until his death on the cross. This historical moment is one of if not the most holy and significant time of year for practicing Christians around the world to honor and celebrate.

We can allow

Whether you are Christian or not, you know the story of Jesus’s birth and again imagination influences and provides a backdrop. There are lots of questions and a few answers. Yet, we go in faith to carry forth this incredible Christmas story in our culture. Blending, honoring and peacefully embracing both Santa Claus, his beard and red velvet suit with our minds and hearts along with the birth of a king lying in a manger in Bethlehem in swaddling clothes surrounded by shepherds, animals and angels. 

How beautiful this is. Does imagination have something to do with it? I hope so.       

The views expressed in this opinion column are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of FāVS News. FāVS News values diverse perspectives and thoughtful analysis on matters of faith and spirituality.