An Ideal Christmas

I love this time of year. Every year. I look forward to its arrival, I harass my wife about starting to play Christmas music too soon, I feel an exquisite tension between eagerly wanting the season to begin and the annoyance of what seems like an ever-earlier deployment of department stores’ Christmas inventories.

I admit I’m nothing if not inconsistent.

But I adore the Christmas season. I appreciate the reflective, introspective, meditative spirit that winter brings, I enjoy dressing in cold weather clothes, and I love the celebration of God incarnate, come to earth to save His inept, rebellious, helpless creation.

But only a few short years ago, I began to notice something. I perceived that year after year, as the season fell into full-swing, a kind of nervous worry had started to take up residence in my heart. Because the last Christmas just hadn’t been quite up to par. And the Christmas from a few years ago felt like a huge swing-and-a-miss. The excitement, hope, and celebration of the season wasn’t always paying off liked I always hope that it does, and concern that the upcoming Christmas would turn out to be another dud began to weigh on me.

 As the holiday dawned and the decorations were put up, the music was played, and all of the accoutrements of the season began to make themselves known, a thought occurred to me: What if I’m feeling let down because I’ve been conditioned to expect nothing less than some transcendent, magical, fairy tale-like experience of Christmas?

I chewed on that thought for a minute and have come to the conclusion that it is almost certainly the culprit behind the disappointments of my previous years. Think about it. The Christmas season has not been anything in modern times if not co-opted by merchandising and corporate interests and, given that, consider how many Christmas-themed commercials we all see every year. And what does all of this marketing have in common?

Idealism. Fantasy. Contrivance. Wishful thinking and false hope.

The perfectly-sized snow falls at a most picturesque speed. The lights are spaced and spread at just the right distance and shining with mystical luminosity. White Christmases and winter wonderlands and bells on bobtails and rapturous joy in the unveiling of the new car, toaster, video game, jewelry, television, or smart phone are all we get to see in our culture’s popular representation of the holiday. Day-in and day-out we are bombarded with the notion that Christmas is magical to a Disney-like intensity and if our own personal experience doesn’t manage to attain to that same level of fantastic wonder, we’re left feeling like we missed something.

My friends, we’ve been had.

The Ideal Christmas is a recipe for disappointment. It’s a trick, really, to get us to part with more of our money in hopes that deeper expenditure will result in a more satisfactory – that is, timeless, unforgettable, otherworldly, mythical - Christmas. We’re chasing a fable.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Part of the fun of Christmas is the activation of the imagination, the beauty of the lights and decorations, and the wonder of pondering why we celebrate it all in the first place. It truly is a special time of year and I am most definitely not advocating that we treat it like just any other time of year. The sights, the sounds, the smells and the tastes are special and should be cherished. But our appreciation of those things and the holiday more broadly should not be left to rest upon circumstances that can (and will) change from year to year.

Instead, we should make every effort to allow the beauty, wonder, joy, hope and celebration of the holiday drive us to something else. Namely, to the person whose birth and life gave rise to Christmas in the first place. For, while individual Christmases throughout the passing years may be good, bad, stressful, relaxed, frustrating, joyful, all wrong or just right, the One we should be seeking to honor through our Christmas festivities is good, beautiful, wondrous, magnificent, and holy no matter how we might feel about Him at any particular time or in any particular moment.

Now, I’m also aware of the fact that the whole “Jesus Is The Reason For The Season” bumper sticker approach to Christmas can illicit some very justified eye-rolling, too. We’ve all heard it a million-bajillion times and it feels just as tired and worn out as all of the over-commercialization. But the key difference to remember here is that the idea underlying these sentiments is true and the one underlying the other thing is not. Christmas as magical, perfect, holiday celebration time simply cannot hold up under the weight of life as it really is. The truth is that some of us will be sick, some of our families seem like more trouble than they’re worth, some of us won’t have the slightest idea what the next year will bring and we’re terrified because of it, some of us have recently lost people near and dear to us, some of us have experienced massive failure and disappointment in the months leading up to Christmas, and the fun and wonder of the season just might not ring all that true. The holiday itself can’t withstand the kind of onslaught that life seems all too willing to bring down on it. But the One for whom the holiday was created absolutely can.

The joy we find in the reality of Christ, the majesty of His character, the love demonstrated for us through His life and death, the hope we hold to because of His achievement, and the undeserved grace He pours out on us every single day are bigger and better than the circumstances surrounding what may be a very difficult Christmas season. Part of the wondrous beauty of Christ is found in knowing that long after the tree has come down, the lights have turned off, and the songs have stopped playing, He will still be who He is. And He will still have done what He came here to do.

And if that’s not worth rejoicing over, I’m not sure anything is.

So, this Christmas, let’s make an effort to thank God for all that He’s done for us when we’re feeling let down and disappointed if things don’t turn out quite the way we’d prefer. And let’s make an effort to praise God for a season full of wonder and joy and beauty if we do manage to find ourselves caught up in the season’s celebrations the way we were when we were kids. Regardless of how your particular Christmas circumstances unfold, remember that there is something much bigger, far better, infinitely more beautiful and eternally more long-lasting than just this season.

Remember that Christmas itself is not the ideal.

It’s simply pointing us in the direction of the One who is.

~

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. – James 1:17

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, - Ephesians 2:8

God rest ye merry, gentlemen, let nothing you dismay. Remember, Christ our Savior was born on Christmas day to save us all from Satan's power when we were gone astray.
O tidings of comfort and joy;
Comfort and joy.