There’s a play happening this morning. Men and women are running around the church getting everything ready, fixing things that aren’t right, preparing for the service that’s about to happen. Workers labor over the hot chololate and paneton, making sure it’s just right. People crowd into the church, filling all the seats until there’s standing room only. 

I’m sitting down, watching all of this happen and I can’t help but buy into all the excitement that’s happening around me. It overflows inside me and the butterflies in my stomach take flight. 

I think that’s one of the things I love most about Christmas, the electrified anticipation. We anxiously await so many things this time of the year, the Christmas play, the music, the presents, the food. You feel it everywhere you go, in the busy churches, the hectic shopping malls, your beautifully decorated home. It’s remarkable and its exciting, this anticipation, it makes you sit on the edge of your seat waiting for what going to happen next. 

I’ve always known that our Jesus steps onto the scene at Christmas time. I’ve always been aware that Jesus is the whole reason why Christmas even exists and I’ve always been so thankful that he came. We’ve always celebrated Jesus birth on the 25th. But this year has been different for me. This year I can’t help but think of Mary and Joseph, the shepherds and the wise men and how they felt on this week so many years ago. Surely they were feeling the same way I am, even more so. Surely they felt nervously excited, anxiously awaiting a baby boy who was going to save them all. They must have felt so many things that week. 

This year, I’ve put Jesus at the top of my list of things I anxiously await at Christmas. I’ve never done that before and it’s made me love Christmas in a whole new way. 

He’s coming in two days. Our Savior is coming. The man who truly, deeply, unconditionally loves us is coming. I think it’s time to start living like it. We get so caught up in all the other excitement that we forget about the baby we should be most excited about. 

I feel the electrified anticipation all of December and now, I’m sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for my Savior, the love of my life.