When you're a kid, the holiday season is the best time of the year. There are presents, sweets, late nights, and everything else your parents forbid you to enjoy the rest of the year. You have a free pass to ask for any new toy you want as well as the liberty to drink as much hot chocolate as humanly possible. The only real downside is that you have to go to mass, if you're a Christian, on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. Other than that, the holiday season is smooth sailing for pretty much everyone under the age of 13.

Many adults would agree that the holiday season is the best time of year as well. However, I can't say the same. Christmas just isn't the same anymore because it's missing all the magic. Everything about Christmas is a mystery when you're a kid; everything is painted in a beautiful blanket of snow. Holiday music slaps because it reminds you of that Christmas-morning feeling. Receiving a new toy or having the week off of school is on par with achieving Nirvana. Even the idea of Santa, a fat man who breaks into your house at night and eats your food, is particularly intriguing.

Even though Christmas is magical as a kid, I don't think anyone can fully grasp the "true meaning" of the holiday until he or she is an adult. To me, the true meaning of Christmas is not only Christ but also family. These both sound like pretty cliché "true meanings," but hear me out. Now, and even when I was a kid, the most peace I felt during the Christmas season was attending Christmas Eve mass with my family and singing Silent Night with the parish.

I never understood why I derived so much joy from that one 6pm service, especially because I'm not an extremely religious person. I believe in a God but I don't really understand the concept of Jesus, which stinks because Christmas is the celebration of Jesus' birth. Sometimes I wonder if he really was a real person, or how, like the Bible says, he is partly God. 12 years of religious education never solved that mystery to me. However, I know that Jesus stands for grace, which is essentially strength to be our best selves. Therefore, at Christmas I find joy in the fact that God granted us grace, which sustains us throughout the rest of the year.

So there's Christ, but there's also family. I'm very shy and was even shyer when I was a kid, so visiting my extended family during the holidays wasn't always my favorite pastime. Now, however, I am breaking out of my shell. I don't cower in the corner anymore (well, depends on the day, but still) and I look forward to catching up with my cousins, aunts, and uncles. I've realized that because we are all family, we experience the world through similar ways. That means that there's always a lot of laughs when we're together, because we find the same things funny. There's really nothing like family.

This year, my brother went to his girlfriend's house for Christmas Eve, leaving my mom, dad, and I alone at home. It got me thinking about how we're both getting older, and I grew angry at his absence because if I couldn't have the juvenile delight of Christmas, and I couldn't even have the adult enjoyment of family, what was there left to enjoy? The truth is that the more life goes on, the more we need a little more family and a little more God (again, if you're into that). So even if you weren't in the Christmas spirit this year, remember that there's magic in those things, too.