Christmas tastes like Egg Nog.

For some, Christmas has a Peppermint taste. Gingerbread is the flavor of Christmas for others. Still many think Christmas has the flavor of a Chocolate Covered Cherry. (I will refuse to recognize the mentally unstable people who think Christmas tastes like Fruitcake.)

For me, though, Egg Nog is what my holiday palate craves. I wasn’t on the Egg Nog bandwagon until a few years ago. The name, color, and reputation of Nog was off-putting to me. But I decided to be adventurous and give it a shot.

I’ve been an Egg Nog advocate ever since, taking in all the different flavors including the famous Egg Nog Latte from Starbucks. (For the record, I’m not all that big on alcoholic Egg Nog. Just pour me a class of the rich, thick liquid without any add-ins and I’ll happily put it down.)

As the Christmas season wears on and my Egg Nog intake adds up, I begin wondering why the sweet treat isn’t available year-round. Why must my taste buds be deprived 11 months out of the year?

The question then becomes this: Would Egg Nog still be so special if it was available all year?

Would the creamy goodness of Egg Nog be so splendid if I could pour it in a glass everyday? The truth is, probably not. Part of what makes Egg Nog such a special treat is it’s limited availability.

Which gets me thinking about the Christmas story itself. I wonder if the Christmas story would lose its flavor if we celebrated it everyday. 

Is the Christmas story so special because we only talk about it for a few weeks a year? Would the power of the virgin pregnancy, the inn with no room, and the 3 wise men be lost if we remembered them 24/7?

Maybe it’s a good thing we don’t have a Nativity Scene up all year. Maybe it’s a good thing the Advent Calendar is not 365 days long. Maybe the Christmas story would lose its significance if we heard about it everyday.

Maybe.

But as the Egg Nog loses its flavor, the gift of God’s son to the world quenches our eternal thirst. The birth of Jesus is not special because we only talk about it once a year. The incredible circumstances which led to our Savior’s arrival would remain incredible even if you examined them everyday.

And even if the Christmas story somehow lost all its power, the story of the next three decades of Jesus’s life would still remain. The story of the Old Testament, whose books and lineages all lead up to the birth of Christ, would still remain. There would still be enough reason to acknowledge Jesus. The flavor of our Savior will not expire.

So instead of wondering how to stockpile Egg Nog all year, we can consider how to savor the flavor of our Savior everyday. For while seasons change and tastes along with them, the redeeming hope of Christmas will never fail to satisfy.

Let the holiday flavors pass away. You’ll enjoy them more because of their limited shelf life. But hold tight to the true taste of Christmas and you’ll never go thirsty again.

What is the taste of Christmas to you? How can you keep the Christmas flavor year-round?