Obey God and do the good for our neighbor that we wish for ourselves.  This is love.  But how is it even possible?  Can we just decide one day to be a loving person and voila! there we are, full of love and charity? Well, maybe not; but C.S. Lewis does recognize that love is, in part, something we must decide to do:

“The rule for all of us is perfectly simple.  Do not waste time bothering whether you “love” your neighbour; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.”

Yet there is something more to love than just forming habits.  There is something distinctively Christian about it—actually, something even distinctively Christmasy about the virtue of love.  

The apostle John explains that “we love because God first loved us.”  That is, our ability to love God and our neighbor doesn’t start inside ourselves but rather with God’s initiating love for us.  So, why is that Christmasy?  Because, John explains, “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.”  Whether or not you celebrate Christmas, there is no escaping the fact that it is the greatest love story of all time.  Or, as Christina Rossetti wrote:

Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, love divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
Star and angels gave the sign.

Worship we the Godhead,
Love incarnate, love divine;
Worship we our Jesus:
But wherewith for sacred sign?

Love shall be our token,
Love shall be yours and love be mine,
Love to God and to all men,
Love for plea and gift and sign.