Remember Forrest Gump’s mama? She had a way of boiling wisdom down to bumper-sticker brilliance: “Stupid is as stupid does.” Turns out Thomas Merton, the monk-poet with a knack for solemnity, may have been humming the same tune back in 1939. In a poem attributed to him, Christmas as to People (although there is no sure evidence that he actually wrote it), he declared: "Christmas is as Christmas does." Given the world stage in 1939, the poem isn't exactly decked with candy canes and carols. It opens with:
Christmas is as Christmas does.
And the wide world shudders now with woes.
From there, the sleigh ride heads downhill fast. Me? I prefer my Christmas poetry to have a little more sparkle: holly and
evergreen, jingling bells, and enough tinsel to make Clark Griswold proud.
Still, Mama Gump and the apocryphal Brother Merton were onto something.
Their words remind us of a timeless truth: we become what we do.
In ancient Greece, when philosophy and psychology still
shared the same cradle, Aristotle reminded his students that character is not a
gift—it’s a habit. Do something often enough, and it becomes who you are. Tell
the truth repeatedly, and honesty takes root until it feels effortless.
Practice friendliness, generosity, and consideration, and kindness will become second nature. Live “as if” you were already the person you aspire to be, and you’ll find yourself becoming that person. In that sense, the spirit of Christmas—generosity, peace, compassion—isn’t a seasonal costume we
put on once a year. It’s a way of being that grows stronger each time we choose
it.
But Aristotle also knew the shadow side of this truth.
Habits don’t discriminate between virtue and vice. As Jungian analyst John A.
Sanford observed in Meeting the Shadow, Robert Louis Stevenson’s tale of
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a chilling parable of this dynamic. Jekyll believed
he could dabble in darkness without consequence, slipping in and out of Hyde at
will. Yet each indulgence gave Hyde more power, until the mask became the man.
His actions reshaped his very core.
And so, whether in the glow of Christmas lights or the gloom
of Hyde’s London streets, the lesson is the same: we become what we do. Mama
Gump said it plain, Merton said it solemn (maybe), Aristotle said it wise. The choices
we make—bright or bleak—are the brushstrokes that paint the portrait of our
lives. If Christmas is as Christmas does, then perhaps the best gift we can
give is to live each day “as if” we were already the generous, peaceful,
compassionate people we long to be.
