There are some things that were on our list that we didn't quite get to... one was to host a Taste for Change dinner party (as you can see by the last blog entry, this was begun quite a bit ago!). We went on the Big Adventure, but never got any video footage together. There are some other ones that we didn't complete on our fridge list of goals, I know, but we're in Florida (!!!) to record an EP with the worship band we joined this year, The Remedy, so I don't have it in front of me to remember what all of them are that we "failed" on...
And I think that's where this blog post is going. Honestly, I have had so much on my heart that I've wanted to write about that it's hard to pick one, but we'll start here. It is the day after Christmas, and I am struck by how often this season I was asked by frazzled people, "Are you ready for Christmas?!" I am starting to cringe whenever I hear this (and when I am tempted to ask it myself). What most people mean is, "Have you spent all your money yet? Have you proven yourself socially savvy by purchasing something for everyone that could possibly be expecting it? Have you put decorations out? Have you baked your 32 dozen cookies for the 16 cookie exchanges you agreed to do? Did you pick up enough stuff in the dollar section at Target to fill stockings and White Elephant gift bags so that people can feel momentarily fulfilled before they throw it away or give it to Goodwill?"
Let me be clear: I love Christmas. Chris loves it even more.
We begin listening to nothing but Christmas music on Black Friday and rotate through our deluxe Christmas special DVD sets (which, p.s., are WAY weirder than I thought they were when I was 7...) and work on our now-annual Chris & Jenna Christmas video (you can view 2011 here and 2012 here) and save our pennies for a Starbucks peppermint white mocha or eggnog latte... (Year of Health, Jenna. One and done!!) This year, I got in crafty mode and made us an advent calendar:
On each day to flip over, I put a sticky note of a Christmas-related task and a scripture to read. I tried to make it a special thing that would increase Chris's abundant holiday cheer and keep us mindful of this special time. I included trivial things, like the Starbucks drink, as well as some more service-oriented things that make me uncomfortable, like creating some cold-weather kits for homeless people in our community and actually going out to give them in person (we got the stuff for the kits; we are planning to give them out when we return from FL). Without fail, as December got busier, we started to fall behind on some of our activities. There was my precious creation on the wall, but I'd look at it and realize that yesterday's date would still be unturned, and that some of the dates we had overturned listed activities we hadn't even begun.
Cue the voices of despair.
Each time, though, Chris looked at me sternly and mandated that we were NOT going to turn the advent calendar into a guilt trip. We could CHOOSE to do the things I had thought up, or we could choose not to, or we could choose to do them 3 weeks after Christmas, and that none of this would be a measurement of failure. It was a choice. He centered me each time, implying that I am not a terrible wife if we didn't bake the self-inflicted cookies for the neighbors at a timely moment (and that maybe I should also chill if I didn't actually have enough powdered sugar for the recipe I had wanted to make, and if I accidentally melted the butter instead of softening it...).
And I need his help in this... because if I listen to everyone around me, Christmas is a to-do list. It's a set of things to accomplish, and I am less of a woman if I don't complete them all.
This wearies my heart.
It's hard to communicate the message of what I want to say without sounding like the cheesy "Keep CHRIST in Christmas!" saying. Because really, I don't see much of Christ in a lot of the Christmas in my area. God didn't commission the holiday of the Christmas that we've made at Jesus' birth. The angels didn't sing, "Glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people who manage to hang enough icicle lights to look festive but not tacky." A lot of our pretty carols and songs even seem to sing of the poor baby Jesus in the cold winter snow, which whether it's accurate or not, seems to hint at a lot more of our own seasons and chosen date of December 25 than the Biblical evidence I read of the account. It's a microcosm of what we do to God: we take something miraculous and incredible, and we attach our own human ideas and practices to it until it's a weak, shredded version of what it once was. While I love seeing decorated trees and lights, they are not Christmas.
Christmas is God exchanging his riches for poverty. Christmas is God turning the status quo on its head. Christmas is God coming to earth as a homeless infant. Christmas is God taking on human flesh SO THAT he could die for us, set from the beginning. Christmas is the gift we've never quite been able to rationalize receiving, the gift we disguise with bows and wrapping so that we can make it something pretty and orderly and tangible and controlled, instead of the dirty, shocking, "beautiful, scandalous night" that it was. Christmas is unfair. I can't pay it back, can't measure up to it, can't fathom it, can't justify it by my actions.
And when I read of Mary's selfless compliance bearing the son of God, sacrificing her community's respect, Joseph doing the same by taking her as his wife to follow God's direction, and this rugged, painful, glamor-less birth, all of the Secret Santas and house spotlights to show greenery and bows through the night to passersby and shopping "to do" on my list become hollow. I don't think God's dreams for us when He let us know of this miraculous night in history were to have us spend THOUSANDS of dollars on gifts that, honestly, most of the people on our lists really don't need.
I don't think He desired for Christmas to become something to accomplish.
My vow is that I will not make Christmas into this. I will not share in the scores of women who ask, "Are you ready??" and find comfort in us each bemoaning how much we've procrastinated on gift-buying and how much food we'll need to make in the coming weeks. Because we don't HAVE to do any of it.
Seriously? Seriously. WE DON'T HAVE TO DO ANY OF IT.
Will our families judge us? Will our neighbors scoff? Will our Bible studies look at us in concern? Will our children feel jilted?
Probably. And if that's enough to keep us going through the motions, scurrying around like drug-tested mice to "be ready" for Christmas, then we've missed the whole point. Entirely.
Don't miss my meaning: having an opportunity to express care for people through thoughtful, meaningful gifts is wonderful. Having family traditions is special and creates closeness and memories. Doing intentional preparations for a holiday that remind us of why we celebrate in the first place is helpful and can keep our hearts in the proper posture. I love doing these things, and will continue to do them. But I pray that as I do them, I will do them with a heart like Mary's, who "pondered these things and treasured them in her heart," and did not "briefly reflect on these things and treasured the gifts she didn't have to worry about coming in the mail on time."
Christmas will NEVER be a to-do list in our house, a thing to race to get ready for on the outside and not in our spirits, and if it ever does, I pray we can back off from it and get back to its simple, hard, lovely truths of love poured out on us undeservedly.
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