Seriously you guys, I finished all my Christmas prep over a
week before the 25th! All is ready and wrapped and twinkling and now
I get to lazily browse for delicious Christmas dinner recipes and pick out
which Christmas Eve service(s) we want to go to. Boom Bam Baby, I just
Christmased like a boss.
I will now share with you the secret of getting through your
Christmas to-do list quickly and efficiently: don’t put much on it.
That’s it.
Some of the simplification of our Christmas came about
organically – it didn’t take too long to decorate the house because we don’t
actually have that many decorations. Gift shopping also didn’t last more than a
few hours because we decided we could do other things with our meager funds
than just buy each other a bunch of crap. A few select people got one thing
each (or a group thing) and I am militantly unrepentant. It’s Jesus’ birthday,
not yours.
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| So wrong, it's right. |
Other simplifications happened more intentionally. I just
refused to do stuff. We got invited to a lot of parties and while they sounded
like fun, we turned them down and just enjoyed being together. And it was
brilliant!
Christmas gets out of hand so easily and so quickly. It
becomes this enormous burden of cookie baking, office parties, ugly sweater
parties, white elephant exchanges, cookie exchanges, Christmas programs,
Christmas program practices, and fa la la la la until you pass out on the
floor.
Brace yourselves people, I’m about to lay some super cheesy
Christmas wisdom on you: it’s not about presents, it’s about presence. (*gag*)
But really, it is.
God Incarnate is here.
Incarnation is such a great word. It comes from the Latin
for “flesh” but in the happy little dialect of Latin that I happen to know
(Spanish), the word “carne” is far more often translated “meat.”
God be-meat-ified has come to us. The Lord of Hosts put on
skin and bones and muscle like an ugly Christmas sweater and hung out with us –
one with the talking meat sacks. Yeah, I know, that’s not a very romanticized
way to speak of the Nativity story but really, how romantic is your real life?
If it’s anything like mine, it’s a lot less holy serene people with softly
glowing halos and more sweat and chaos and tired bags under your eyes. That’s
kind of the point; Jesus is for your real life, not whatever perfect version
you wish it could be.
So be of good courage my fellow meat sacks! When someone
tries to rope you into volunteering for something or guilt you into buying more
than you can afford or whatever extra holiday activity appears to stress you
out, say no! Do the things you love that are meaningful for you and your family
and let the rest go.
Just be. Be with your loved ones and your God, because God
is with us.
Emmanuel.
