Why This Christmas Promises to be Meaningful

I don’t know whether any of you can empathize, friends, but the holidays have always brought with them a tinge of melancholy and disappointment for me.  I haven’t quite put my finger on why, but I wonder whether it might have to do with the fact that all the commercial, media and societal hype leading up to and about Christmas usually turns out to be a bit anticlimactic in reality.  Hollywood and television specials tends to portray the holidays as a marvelous, cheerful time marked by huge family gatherings (where everyone proudly dons tacky Christmas sweaters), joyous reunions, magical moments under the mistletoe, spectacular miracles, lavish gifts, abundant goodies, food and drink, and…an unspoken, societal expectation that everyone and everything be or act merry and perfectly content.  Is it just me or does it all seem a bit…manufactured and excessive?

For we know that actually, the holidays are the most difficult and cheerless time of the year for many (maybe even some of you).  For some, the holidays are associated with and forever dampened by great loss and mourning (perhaps of a loved one).  For others, the holidays ring in a period of immeasurable loneliness (only accentuated by the show of merriment all around).  Or the holidays may mark a time of undue burden for the financially struggling, especially those with young, wide-eyed children still innocently expecting, or at least hoping for, that dreamed-about something from Santa.  So if we’re at all sensitive to these harsh realities, the holidays aren’t just one festive, universal party.  (May God bless and comfort the ones who weren’t invited or aren’t able to join in!)

I myself can’t attribute my regular holiday melancholy to any of the tangible reasons or circumstances enumerated above.  Yet every year this season (from Thanksgiving to New Year’s), something was just…missing.  Which is strange, because as a Christian, I recognize and celebrate Christmas foremost as the birthday of Jesus, my Savior and Prince of Peace.  And every year at church, we get to listen to the Nativity story and are reminded of the most glorious and momentous gift that Christmas represents.  So really, my “mood” during the season is inconsequential to the overarching significance and victory that Christmas signifies.  But I think in my human weakness, I still wasn’t quite able to escape the aforementioned holiday commercialism and superficial hype, and the resulting emptiness or disappointment still regularly got to me.

This year, however, I am relishing the holidays.  In fact, though this will be the first time I can recall that we’ll miss some wonderful Christmas celebrations with friends, won’t be in the comfort of our own home on Christmas morn, and have but a handful of small gifts under the tree, it promises to be the best Christmas yet, and for good reason.

Firstly, though I won’t go into the details, this last Thanksgiving, the thing I was MOST grateful for were the first steps of long overdue reconciliation in a broken family relationship.  (There is nothing in the world that affects my personal peace or joy more than being in good relationship and communion with those I care about.  So you can imagine how painful a serious and longtime rift with family members would be.)  Five years of silence, absence, grudges, judgment and probably a lot of misunderstanding in the mix was long enough and so very tiresome and wearing.  So this holiday season, we all chose courage, grace and forgiveness instead.  Is there any serenity or relief like the dissipation of that long buried, but ever gnawing, pain of not being right with a loved one?  (If you have given up hope that a relational rift in your life can ever be healed, don’t.  That’s how I felt for the longest time until God and life showed me different. Hang in there, friend.)  This Christmas, I get to experience the powerful blessing of answered prayers and the awesome work of the Prince of Peace in a most touching, tangible way.  And so I look forward, with great gratitude, to starting 2015 with all my meaningful relationships in order.

Also, for the first time, this Christmas, my eldest (9) decided he’d like to forego presents and instead ask relatives for gift money to be used to buy the 8-year-old Bangladeshi boy we sponsor through World Vision a goat or chickens (i.e., a steady supply of milk or eggs, and an income source) to help sustain him and his family.  Further, when the LAPD’s Santa made a surprise visit to our neighborhood, Mrs. Santa winked at me and confided that Daughter (7) told Santa her wish was that every child in the world would receive a toy.  (Never mind that Baby Boy (4) wished for a Nerf gun.  Two out of three ain’t bad, right??)   But in all seriousness, my two older kids’ outward, rather than self-centered, Christmas wishes really touched my heart and gave me hope that they are in fact learning, moreover practicing, goodness and empathy, little by little.  You don’t know how many times DH and I have feared and lamented any signs of spoiled brattiness or ingratitude in our children.  (Well, actually, some of you parents may empathize all too well.)

Finally, because I want a peaceful, minimal-stress Christmas, I am grateful we will be out of town for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day this year.  In other words, NO PREPPING, COOKING, or CLEANING involved.

These are the small, or perhaps not so small, miracles that have lifted my spirits this holiday season.  For those of you needing a little miracle or two of your own, that will be my Christmas wish.  Happy holidays, all, and peace out, peeps!