In the United Kingdom, at least for as long as I can remember, the day after Christmas

day has been called Boxing Day. As a child, it struck me as a very curious description

for the day after Christmas. It apparently

was not the one day in the year when you were allowed to fight with your big brother. In fact,

I remember that people seemed to think it was a kind of tidy up the mess day after Christmas,

the day you put everything back in boxes, hence boxing day.

And I had my own version of why it was called Boxing Day, because Christmas was, apart from

small gifts on my birthday, the one time in the year you would get a special present, and we looked

forward to it, anticipating it for weeks in advance,

and it was a magical day. And I suspect, like many other children on Boxing Day,

I would try to recapture the feelings of the day before by putting my presents back into their boxes,

and then we'd open up the boxes again, hence Boxing Day.

But of course, it was never the same as opening them for the first time. It could never

be the same. Christmas Day was Christmas Day, 24 hours, only once a year, unrepeated until near the end of the next long year, another

year to wait for the excitement, the joy, the presence.

And as a child, I hated this let down, and the demands it made on my patience, and try as I might, I could not

make Christmas last."

And so when I later became a Christian, I couldn't help asking myself, is it possible to

make Christmas last?

And that's where the words of Hebrews chapter 13, verse 8, have come to mean so much to me.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

I suspect I may have referred to these words several times in the course of the year and

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