Christmas in July

Several Australians are here on Iona as resident or volunteer staff. And apparently their custom is to celebrate Christmas in July. Not the whole advent part of Christmas, but the commercial Christmas. Being located south of the equator, their winter is our summer season, so to be able to wear winter Christmas clothing they celebrate during their winter. So one of the Australian vollies made last Friday Christmas. The kitchen made a special Christmas feast, and feast was the only word to describe it. We decorated with all the traditional decorations. Played all the right music and even exchanged gifts. Several of the resident staff wore their Christmas garments. One even gave the Queen’s Christmas address. With a little imagination, ingenuity and effort July 16 was Christmas. And it really left like Christmas.
Sounds fairly random. Until you consider how random our calendar actually is. We make up holidays or the government legislates holidays. Christmas, the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus, has no evidence that supports that actually being his day of birth. It is the day, the time, the season we set aside to remind ourselves, hopefully, of that event. So why couldn’t any random day, July 16 for example, be Christmas?
And if that’s the case why not celebrate all days as special days? Can we live as if this very day is a day the Lord has made, and rejoice and be glad in it? What would that look like?
This is a thin place.