Well, it’s officially mid-December and the Christmas rush seems to be in full force everywhere from the school hallways to the roadways. I have yet to finish shopping, start the Advent calendars {I’m just 14 days late!}, send our Christmas cards, or drink any form of hot chocolate. But, I’m telling myself today is a new day… and there’s still time!
Meanwhile, here are some quick thoughts about a few seasonal matters:
Whenever I fly I take a valium a few minutes before boarding the plane. It doesn’t knock me out completely, but it knocks the edge off my anxiety. The Lauren Daigle “Behold” album is basically like a Christmas valium. It’s hard to feel frantic when her soulful, jazzy music is playing in the background. She has one beautiful original song, “Light of the World,” and nine other holiday classics on the album. It makes for great carpooling, wrapping, dining, or winding down music for anyone who might want to add some worshipful and jazzy calm to the Christmas crazy.
Speaking of winding down, we each do it in our own way. Every afternoon when we get home from school pick-up, the Kindergartener races upstairs and changes into an outfit of some sort as her way of debriefing from her school day. Some days it’s an Elsa costume or a dance outfit, but this week her clothing of choice has been what she calls her “Mary” costume. Using a prairie dress, a baby blanket, and a sequined headband, she morphs into a fairly believable Nativity Pageant character:
I don’t understand this desire to get into full character every afternoon as a means of relaxing. It seems like a lot of unnecessary work to enter into an imaginary world. But, I just recently stumbled across this quote I had saved in the notes on my phone:
What we discover is that in the humility and purpose-free rhythm of play there is something about ourselves that God desperately wants to reveal. If only we could take ourselves less seriously for a moment. We find the joy of childlikeness. We find the release of our need to be something. We learn that the world is not dependent on us, but is delighted by a less intense us.
{Casey Tygrett, author of Becoming Curious: A Spiritual Practice of Asking Questions}
That seems like a good word for December. The joy of childlikeness is at its peak in the lights, the cookie decorating, the gingerbread house making, the Santa and elf sightings, and the dressing up as Mary or Joseph… or an angel or a shepherd. December is the only month when it’s completely acceptable to wear matching pajamas or an ugly sweater, to eat a cheese ball and fruitcake for breakfast, or to decorate your car with antlers and a red nose. And as hard as it is to embrace the truth that December is not dependent on us, it’s easy to believe the people around us would be “delighted by a less intense us.” Delighted and surprised, I might add.
I won’t be donning a Mary costume anytime soon, but I’m going to try not to get as worked up as I typically do about the excessive amounts of Christmas clutter, the exorbitant sugar intake, and other such childlike going-ons around here this month.
What never fails to get me worked up, though, is unrealistic expectations. The girls are pretty practical with their Christmas wishes this year with the exception of a few items. For one, the 5th Grader has mentioned wanting a guinea pig. She actually got teary in the car the other day when I shut that idea down emphatically. If a happy childhood depends on owning a guinea pig, I fear hers will be unhappy. I can handle costumes and cookies all day long; I cannot handle a guinea pig.
Then I saw where the 3rd Grader actually wrote a P.S. on her list that says, “I’d also like a fish that can have babies.” Again, no. We own three invincible fish, which means we’re all set and should be satisfied in the sea life department.
Most ridiculous, though, is the Kindergartener’s request for a baby sister. I told her that is not an option because she is the baby sister. So she, of course, replied she would be taking her request directly to Santa. What she doesn’t know is that I am 100% certain Santa is on my side in this matter.
And, one final thought…
Last week when I was trying to make a photo book and nearly going blind in the process, I stumbled across some videos from way back in 2011. One of them was a video taken the day after the Kindergartener was born. In it, the older two girls are seated in the hospital room taking pictures with their new sister. The oldest is holding her and smiling on command like oldest children do. The middle one is less interested and squirming around, smiling only on occasion and with much encouragement. At the end of the video you can hear my mom say to her, “OK. It’s your turn now. Do you want to hold the baby?” And to that, my ever-honest middle child slides out of the chair and replies,
“No. I want chips.”
I’ve watched the video at least ten times now because her response is so deadpan and amusing. But, I think there’s something about it that reminds me of my own response to Christmas. I get so consumed and distracted doing all the things ~ the cards, the gifts, the wrapping, the eating, the running from here to there ~ that I don’t really have much time for reflection. Figuratively, I’m not interested in being still long enough to hold the baby either. Besides being a video I want to save for posterity, that little clip was a timely reminder not to be in such a hurry to get to the next thing when there is a baby ~ a Savior, in fact ~ to savor.
And I’m pretty sure we need that more than we need a guinea pig, a fertile fish, a baby sister, or a bag of chips.
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