Christmas Chaos

"But make sure that you don’t get so absorbed and exhausted in taking care of all your day-by-day obligations that you lose track of the time and doze off, oblivious to God. The night is about over, dawn is about to break. Be up and awake to what God is doing! God is putting the finishing touches on the salvation work he began when we first believed..." Romans 13:11

“Why do we strive for perfection when we could be watching for the hiddenness of Heaven?” That was part of a longer thought my daughter shared with me a few nights ago.  While she did not intend for it to relate to Advent, it sure did for me.

It all started 22 years ago.  It was my first Christmas season as a married woman.   Among the seasonal activities were iced sugar cookies, beautiful wrapping paper, fancy bows made of satin, and of course a Christmas picture; which included our dog because we wanted the portoral of a joyful family and we did not yet have children to exploit.  So there we sat with our cocker spaniel, in front of our whimsically decorated tree – Christmas 1992.

The Iced sugar cookies morphed over the years, but none the less, making a plate of Christmas sweetness to share with a few of our friends had become a “tradition”.   The box of Christmas wrap and bows in our attic still betray my addiction to pretty things.  And for 19 years I kept up the Christmas card tradition.  A midst screaming fits, baby spit-up, knocks on the head, a frustrated husband, and the occasional fake smile; because dog-on-it!...We were going to get that picture - placed creatively on a handmade card - and tell the world Merry-stinking-Christmas if it killed us!

I also began a collection of angel ornaments the first year my husband and I were married, and there's been more than one nativity set displayed throughout the house as well.  But a few years ago I noticed they were getting lost in the chaos and seemed almost mocked against the back-drop of such seasonal flurry.  It’s sad really, what started with hopes to do Christmas "just right" turned into something so very wrong.   That's why three years ago I stopped it all.

We needed to bring CHRISTmas into focus.   It was a clumsy process and frankly, not very strategic, but maybe God had a strategy.  As I look back, I think the last few years have turned into a fast from the holiday so we could encounter the Advent... In December of 2012,  I don’t think I baked a single cookie; and (perish the thought!) I bought BAGGED bows too!  Since sending cards became such a distraction, they haven't been sent since 2011.  I was worried that friends would be offended or that we would stop receiving their cards, but those concerns rising up were a purging of what had become polluted in my focus for the season.   So as fears came up I tried (sometimes not very successfully) to confess them to Christ and surrender the outcome to Him. 

Today, here I sit with a tree in the living room – no ornaments yet, just lights.  The boxes are still in the attic and the house is less than perfect.  There’s a role of Pillsbury cookie dough in my refrigerator, and well, you get the point.  But there’s also a little more room to watch, and be hopeful; to anticipate, remember, and breathe!  - "Advent".

Why DO we strive for perfection during this season?  Perhaps it is because we long for something better.  Maybe in it, we're reaching for something more than our current reality holds, and the silver and gold that dress the season are the shadows of God's abundance meant for His children.  Our perfection is but a shadow of what is most real.   Heaven hides beyond the extraordinary.  His Majesty – the Christ- arrived through remarkably imperfect circumstances.  His flesh formed in the womb of an unwed woman, his crib was a trough set in a bed of dung-straw.  Amidst the less-than-lovely, "More" came.   HOPE in the flesh drew its first breath not among the gilded but near the messy and broken.

This year, I’m not sure what I’m going to do as far as traditions go.  I might break the fast and consider “preparing the way for the Lord” In whatever comes up, I want to be "alert and awake to what God is doing."  Maybe as I hang the garland that holds the cards I will give thought to preparing for the Christ-child.  Maybe if goodies get baked I will ponder the sweetness of hope brought forth in a babe. Maybe as I wrap the gifts, I will consider the treasure of Christ, held within each of us.   And tonight as my husband lights the tree, I will try to remember God's Kingdom, birthed in the flesh, now coming through us– His children of light.    -  Whatever it is, I want to let go of perfection and keep a good watch for the hiddenness of Heaven.