Is it just me, or does it feel like someone ups the ante on Christmas festivities each year? Between social media baking tutorials and Pinterest photos of homes that could only have been decorated by an elite squad of elves, it seems that there is always a new ritual to add to the Christmas repertoire.
Whether it’s incorporating a new Advent book, attempting to bake exquisitely decorated confectionery with kids who only show up to eat cookie dough, or hosting a myriad of parties for different circles within the community, Christmastime expectations and the lofty standards of beauty and decorum therein can be exhausting.
As a chronic party-thrower, I somehow developed an annual Christmas ritual of well-intentioned self-destruction. Stage One commences shortly after American Thanksgiving and is marked by such an abundance of delusional excitement for Christmas festivities that I invariably fill up our calendar with parties, dinners, and plans to host guests for several days at a time.
Things will be pretty cheery until Stage Two hits, which usually happens around December 18th. This is when the party fatigue sets in, so I start perusing last-minute getaways to fantasize about flying to the Maldives and staying until the year’s end. Stage Three hits when I realize that following through with the aforementioned fantasy is far too expensive and would require more energy than I even have left in the tank.
Bleary-eyed, caffeinated, and fueled by Christmas cookies for breakfast, I’ll power through to the final stretch of festivities with an eye twitch and nightly indigestion. By the time Christmas is over, my whole family is exhausted but grateful to bask in the quieted beauty of wintertime in the Arabian desert.
For years, I have hated myself for this annual cycle of Christmas fatigue. I could only truly contemplate the beauty of the long-awaited savior once the day had passed and the celebrations were over. My husband and I try to construct a holiday schedule that won’t leave us feeling like we are about to keel over and die, and each year we think that we’re about to do it right this time. Nevertheless, we find ourselves in the same condition year after year.
As I entered the fourth and final stage of 2023’s Christmas failure ritual, aka the post-mortem pity party (guestlist of one), I re-shelved the Advent book I had purchased a month earlier with a doomed optimism. The words of “O Holy Night” played from my nearby speaker.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining
‘Til he appeared and the soul felt its worth
A thrill of hope- the weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!
Contemplating the weariness of my own soul and the thrill of hope I felt in having the busyness behind me, the words of that hymn invited me to contemplate the chaos into which Christ was born. There were perhaps salacious whispers and rumors surrounding Mary’s unwedded pregnancy, and possibly a humiliating sense of rejection in Joseph’s fruitless search to secure lodging in his own hometown.
And then there were the Israelites, God’s chosen people, who had labored for millennia to fulfill the requirements of their covenant festivities and sacrifices—all in remembrance of God’s promise and their own anticipation of a Savior that God himself had promised to provide. Their wait was laborious and rife with rebellion and rejection of their holy covenant, yet God was faithful to uphold his promise of deliverance.
For some of us, there is just no getting around how difficult and stressful the Christmas season will be. While this time of year may be lively and joyous for some, it pangs with grief and the pressure to perform for others. If Christmastime does not hold hopeful anticipation for you, perhaps you are feeling the reality of just how desperately the world was pining for rescue. In the midst of what is hailed as “the most wonderful time of the year,” the truth is that many cannot help but yearn for December 26th.
The Messiah’s coming was packaged with many emotions, but not all were particularly joyful. Joseph was ready to call it off with Mary prior to angelic intervention, and Jesus’ arrival was followed by the anguished wails of Bethlehem’s bereaved mothers. Meanwhile, Joseph and Mary fled the country to escape the royal manhunt for their baby, and the Magi had to take the backroads home to avoid the murderous fallout of unwittingly disclosing to King Herod that a powerful new king was in town. Even for those who knew the Messiah’s arrival meant salvation, their circumstances at the time of Jesus’ birth were marked by fear, chaos, and death.
If you are one who is feeling the weight of overwhelm, failure, and grief at Christmastime, know that you are in good company. These may not be the marketable emotions of Christmas, but they are certainly the reality of a weary world longing for rescue. While we know that our savior has conquered death, we can also relate to the raw pain of knowing that the fullest relief and comfort will not be felt until the effects of sin’s curse are finally and definitively crushed.
Perhaps it’s time to lean into the stress and difficulty of Christmastime. Maybe the relief that we feel in the season’s passing is a holy one, and we can delight in the truth that Jesus’s arrival was complicated and surrounded by some traumatic scandals. Our savior was born into a world of sin, and that sin continues to take its toll on humanity today.
If the only hope that you feel at Christmas is that it will eventually be over, perhaps you know the desperate need for creation’s redemption more intimately than those who presently rejoice. While Jesus’ birth is indeed good news for all mankind, we can take comfort in knowing that he himself was a man of sorrows. He knows our pain, our weariness, and our failures. And with full knowledge of our innermost being, he chose to come and dwell with us.
God did not pre-arrange global fanfare or the most hospitable of conditions, but rather sent his beloved son into a sinful world that was hemorrhaging chaos, dysfunction, and pain. These are the realities of our very need for Jesus. His arrival is precisely for those who come to Christmas depleted, broken, and sinful. So perhaps he meets us most intimately not in the parties, programs, or Christmas music, but in the quiet wake of their passing.
