Life After Christmas
People are suffering this year, more than usual. It’s not entirely attributable to just the sagging economy either, there is a growing sense of desperation and hopelessness in the air. We are all struggling with pain or crisis on some level which is a marker for our notably declining civilization. But the month of December, and the holiday that defines and punctuates it, merely adds to the stress of juggling life in triage rather than helps to ease it. I’ve been hanging out here on earth long enough to have a history of Decembers to recollect and compare. There are enough to categorize now. I can gratefully acknowledge many Christmases fully measured up to what I’ve come to recognize as Expectations of Perfection. And yet nearly as many failed the criteria test miserably. Funny how the Christmases that meet or exceed the definition of perfection do not stand out singly, instead blending rather dreamily into one blurry memory of generic satisfaction of a holiday well done. No, the most memorable Christmases for me are the ones that not only did not fit the cookie cutter, they cut deep gouges into my Expectations of Perfection.
High on my recall list I can note more than once being so broke I had no good way to buy gifts for my children, not even much needed clothing. But, with God’s grace, I always found a way to make something joyful happen though and that struggle to meet the challenge and my enduring gratitude to God for helping me lingers as times that are especially memorable. There have been Decembers when I’ve been alone, separated from family, and then others when I’ve been so overwhelmed by my own desire to create the Perfect Christmas that I became sick from exhaustion for my overdoing. Yes, I’ve had more than my share of disappointing Decembers.
I don’t know if it is just age, experience, spiritual maturity or a little of each, I have finally redefined what perfection, in regards to Christmas, means to me now. First, I had to face the illusion of Expectations of Perfection and know that there is no such thing in real life. We love to maintain traditions, it’s a human drive, but we easily forget that mindless traditions should not be at the wheel, in control of us instead of the other way around. Life is not a Thomas Kincade painting.
There is a growing religiosity movement determined to shame or scare Christians into abandoning Christmas celebrations because of the pagan roots of the holiday, even as there is a lot of touchy-feelly rhetoric flying around in emails about putting Christ back in Christmas and remember the “Reason for the Season”, but neither side of this issue addresses the even greater but simple truth. Regardless that nearly everything we do stems from something pagan because they were here first, Christ was indeed born. He came to save us because no one else was worthy. There is a date set aside on our modern calendar to celebrate this birth, whether it’s the actual date or not, or whether it was combined with a pagan festival for convenience centuries ago, is moot. What is far worse than embracing elements of pagan traditions we get caught up in the secular economic blasphemy spewed out to us during the last month of the year. We have allowed ourselves to be seduced away, in the name of Tradition from the peace and joy we could have by simply praising God for His only begotten Son, doing only what we are able, whether it is a lot one year or nothing the next, and simply ignoring the rest. God knows our hearts inside and out and I am sure it grieves Him to see us burdened by our own blind devotion to fulfill expectations of perfection for a season in the name of His Son’s birth.
Once I figured all of this out I was once again able to appreciate that it’s okay for us to celebrate so long as we understand why we are doing it, what natural boundaries our circumstances impose on us each year and accept that His perfect peace cannot be reached through our own attempts at perfection.
Merry Christmas. Peace.
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