How to enjoy Christmas anyway

There are Christmases where nothing goes as planned. There are Christmases that fill up with busyness without you even knowing how, days and days of tasks that swallow you up so quickly you forget to prepare for Him. There are Christmases of sickness and it’s all you can do to get off the couch, much less lead your family into worship. There are lonely Christmases where you feel invisible and misunderstood and small. There are Christmases that don’t match up to the one in your head, Christmases where your house is a mess and your family is grumpy and you are trying to survive and that’s all.

There are Christmases when you wake up and the big day is two days away and you find yourself wondering what happened. And your heart is crying out for you to stop, come to Him, do what you should have done so long ago, but you wouldn’t, because coming to Him meant coming face to face with your failure. You wanted to bring Christ into your Christmas, but instead you ended up with a Christ-less mess.

And so, two days before His birthday, you stop. You admit defeat. You are too tired to try anymore.

You think about the Jesse Tree stories, the history you have been reading to your kids about all the times God rescued His children, reaching into their messes again and again, saying, “I’m coming, I’m coming!”—and all because He loved them too much not to.

And this is the meaning of Advent—coming. God coming down for us because we couldn’t reach up to Him. He was born right into a mess and held by a terrified teenage girl who had no idea what to do except cling tight to that Baby. And maybe she had worked hard to prepare for Him and had a little place of welcome all ready, a room all clean and tidy. And now here she was in a stable, giving birth in the dirt, and soon she would be running for her life to a foreign land, and that little room must have seemed like a faraway dream.

And that’s the whole point. We made a mess of things right from the very beginning, and from the very beginning He has been coming, coming, and all we have to do is let Him in. Sometimes—always?—that is the hardest thing to do. But He sends stars and angels and wise men from afar to remind us we are part of a bigger story.

And so, one day before the big day, you decide to stop trying so hard and just let Him into the mess. You decide to smile.  You sit at His feet awhile, and you marvel at the beauty of this story that keeps unfolding into all the messes, always.

He just keeps coming. All you have to do is let Him.

Hush of the holy

"I'm actually just looking forward to January."

My friend says this frankly with a smile of weariness. It's only December 8 and the Christmas pressure is just too much. I find myself nodding in understanding.

The Christmas festivities that are meant to be fun pile together into this suffocating to-do list that seems to take on a life of its own, shadowing us with this malevolent promise: if you don't get this list done, your Christmas is a failure. Gifts to shop for and wrap and mail, cards to send, food to make. Parties to plan for and attend, concerts to enjoy, trips to go on, decorations to put up. And in the midst, regular life barrels along at its regular breakneck pace.

And yet we continue, year after year, to plunge into the Christmas craziness. Why? What is it that compels us to create such chaos of our world?

What does it all mean?

A good question.

I love the Christmas chaos, actually. And when I think of why, I see there is this hush beneath it all, this place of wonder and joy.

The hush of the holy.

Advent is a time when the barriers of time and place grow thin. God comes near, we feel His breath, and we touch a little piece of eternity.

That baby in a manger. That virgin mother. Those shepherds standing bewildered beneath a chorus of angels. Wise men traveling across years and continents to worship a tiny child.

God is with us. These things speak of hope and miracles. They remind us of the love that made this world and came among us to rescue it. And for a little while, we slow and we still, and we enter the holy.

Except when we don't.

When the celebrations replace the Child, the holy becomes hectic.

When we stress instead of still, we miss the story.

There is a reason every child loves Christmastime and a reason we want our children to love it. For a little while life becomes less ordinary, and we create reasons to celebrate and be together. We sing special songs. We surround ourselves with meaningful objects and memory-filled traditions. We tell stories in whispers, stay up late, eat more. 

We want a reason to rejoice. 

I think the specialness, the set-apartness, of this time is good and freeing and meaningful. But what is really important during Advent? In the end, what will stay with us? What do I want to remember? What do I want my children to remember?

I want to enter the holy. I want His gift to be the only gift that matters.

I doubt the weariness will go away. I know the chaos will clamor to consume us. But we can choose not to let it. We can choose to let these things usher us to the Christ child, and we can let go of the things that don't.

Slow.

Still.

Enter the holy.

Made of love

I'm writing a story to my kids about the Christmas narrative, starting from the very beginning--at creation. I'm trying to imagine the perspective of an angel looking on as God speaks the words that bring the world into being, and suddenly I'm stunned by a thought. 

The world is made of love. 

Literally. God made us because He just couldn't stand not to (at least that's what I think). He dreamed us up and He so wanted to love us that He just had to create. And His love is so huge and strong and beautiful that the words just came spilling out, like an artist inspired. And here it all is. A whole world made of love. 

What other force could have dreamed of skies spread thick with silver stars, mountains piled up like craggy fortresses, rivers sparkling, life teeming, all of earth yearning upward in this glorious song?

Have you ever stood at the ocean's edge at sunrise, watching that burst of light breaking through where sky and water meet? Have you stood on a mountaintop looking out over wave after wave of frosty peaks?

Every day He declares Himself to us over and over in a million creative ways (Psalm 19). His creation shouts, whispers, sings to us of His love. 

Yes, we made a wreck of it. Yes, we are all dying, and this world is dying with us. But just like a shoot growing from a stump (Isaiah 11), His love is the pulse of life that keeps springing upward no matter how we trample it down. 

He won't be outdone. Circumstances may try to convince you otherwise. But this Christmas, I hope you will breathe in the love your world is made of. I hope you will come to Jesus. 

I hope you see shoots growing from stumps. 


Here is the link to my children's Christmas story--one each day until Christmas!