In the midst of December chaos, I sometimes find myself feeling like Cindy Lou Who in the 2000 Grinch movie singing “Where are you Christmas? Why can’t I find You?” This is my 44th Christmas and, somewhere along the way, I’ve developed expectations for what Christmas should be. Anything less than my ideal is a blemish on the season and a barrier to being in the “holiday spirit”.
My childhood Christmases included large amounts of snow, cousins, hayrides and Grandma’s cooking. Anything less than that was not even Christmas. I’ve modified my Christmas expectations a bit since then, obviously. Playing in snow would require a drive up to the mountains and cousins, unfortunately, live far away. However, I still have my seasonal requirements and a picture of how everything should play out. To adult me, Christmas is a cozy, decorated house, cookies baking and a classic Christmas movie playing. Christmas is driving around with the family looking at lights and drinking hot chocolate in seasonally appropriate cups. Christmas is a family picture by the tree with all of us looking festive and happy.
December is never quite what I had hoped or expected. A child gets sick and misses the school concert. Gifts get back-ordered. Work and school go on with an escalated level of crazy. The tree sits undecorated for several days and the outside lights are never quite completed. The weather produces pouring rain rather than snow. My Christmas decorations are an unorganized mess that I always say I’m going to organize someday. Every year. The kids bicker in the car during our annual drive to see lights. Every year.
And those are just the routine blemishes on the Holiday Season. For many, the holiday festivities only heighten a sense of loneliness when loved ones are far away or no longer living. Illness, tragedy, and financial difficulties do not take a break in December.
However, we need not think that Christmas is marred or less than it should be because life is hard. Rather, I have determined that perhaps life’s chaos and difficulties are the very essence of Christmas.
The First Christmas was hardly a cozy fireplace, warm hot cocoa and dreams of dancing sugar plumbs. The First Christmas was dealing with the unexpected. It was a young couple setting aside dreams and expectations for their future and embracing a destiny that would include being ostracized, misunderstood and fearing for their very lives. It was being far from friends and family to birth a child in unsanitary, uncomfortable conditions. It was being completely unprepared and humbly accepting the company and gifts of strangers. In the midst of poverty, loneliness and uncertainty, Hope was born and, because He didn’t fit cultural expectations for a Messiah, very few people even noticed. Life went on and people kept hoping for something or someone to be that “perfect gift”.
Two thousand years later, the true spirit of Christmas can still be alive and well whether you are feeling giddy and festive or drowning in despair. There’s no need to skip Christmas because circumstances don’t fit the stereotype in our heads. Christmas can take place in the midst of war, political tensions and cultural unrest. The Spirit of Christmas can be present in lonely barracks, airport terminals and traffic jams. The Hope of Christmas is especially for those suffering, lonely or destitute. The answer to “Where are you Christmas?” is “IT IS RIGHT HERE!” Right in the midst of your chaos and fears, there is Peace. Right in the midst of your despair, there is Hope. In the midst of frantic busyness, there is calm and tranquility.
This Christmas, I hope you are surrounded by loved ones in a cozy home with lights and the smell of baking cookies, I hope your holiday includes music, laughter, amazing food and all of the wonderful traditions you hold dear. However, if Christmas is not exactly everything you hoped for or expected, you may be closer to capturing the true Spirit of Christmas than you realize.
The only glimpse of perfection that First Christmas was the Perfect Gift wrapped up in cloth - fabric meant for burying the dead - and lying in dirty hay. That Perfect Gift is all we need for the perfect Christmas. Above all, my wish for you this season is that you will savor every moment - every imperfect moment - as a gift. And go about the new year with the hope that comes from the Perfect Gift.
Merry Christmas!
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