Journal Entry December 26, 2022 Did I miss it again?
I wrote that 11 months ago feeling miserable and disappointed with myself. It’s not as though I hadn’t tried.
I had 90% of my Christmas shopping done by the Friday after Thanksgiving. Two days later I had finished Christmas decorating inside and out during another lousy Bronco game.
After a few false starts, by December 2nd I had settled on a simple Christmas card design. On December 3rd I got a head start on Christmas baking for the neighbors by delivering plates of pumpkin strudel muffins.
All my packages were dropped at the Post Office by December 8th. The Christmas tree did look a little bare without presents, so even before the middle of the month I had all the gifts bagged and wrapped with ribbons and bows.
Looking at a calendar, our four Christmas get-togethers seemed evenly spaced out – one either Saturday or Sunday for four straight weekends. I had all my grandmother’s silverware polished and party-ready a week before we threw open our doors. So there should have been enough introvert recovery time between each event.
Of course, there were the usual prescriptions to pick up, dinners to make, laundry to do, envelopes to address and stamp, along with work-related scripts, animations, and admin activities. But it should have all been fine, just fine.
Yet come the day after Christmas I felt like I missed the Christ in Christmas…again.
The effort was there. I had kept daily devotionals. Sang Christmas carols. Prayed for peace on earth. Read Luke 1 and 2. Tried my best to love on my family. Put out an eclectic nativity scene knowing that heaven will reflect every tribe, tongue, and nation.
So why then on December 26th did I feel sad and a bit like a disappointment to the Christ child?
My thoughts turned to Luke, the gospel writer. His Christmas account includes lots of activities too—appearing, announcing, visiting, singing, naming, traveling, and blessing. And also this, “But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.”
She pondered. If Mary, a mother in the 1st century under a violent King Herod, can find time to reflect and consider, why can’t I? Have I let down not only the Son, but his Mother too?
Search me, O God. Have I succumbed to the “custom of acquisitiveness?” 1 A heart with a posture of acquiring—gifts, bows, ornaments, pies, and poinsettias—seems crossways with a posture of contemplation.
“Many of us are losing the simple ability to ponder as our lives become filled with the noise of instant digital access to everything everywhere. The space and discipline to be still, alone, and reflective is an inescapable prerequisite of life with God,” writes Skye Jethani. 2
He’s not wrong. The way of American Christmas leaves little room for quiet pondering. When was the last time you saw a holiday commercial encouraging us to take time alone to gaze up at the night sky and think about how we’re a visited planet…and I’m not talking about visited by Santa Claus.
That is indeed what I’d like to do. To read poetry, lyrics, and verses about Immanuel’s arrival. To ponder Christ’s first coming and imagine His second.
And yet, is it not also a good thing to gather family together after the Covid years for merriment and good cheer? Yes it is.
Is it not good to buy and wrap up Lego gifts for your nephews? Sure it is.
It was good for the shepherds to hurriedly seek out, interrupt, and rejoice at Mary’s side. And good for the wise men and women to stop pondering the stars and actually pack their camels for a road trip. In fact, their abrupt arrivals and rejoicing gave Mary even more meditation material.
My soul needs room for both, a quiet Advent and a holly jolly Christmas.
But how? Each year’s attempt ends in failure.
In my mind, it’s like there’s someone who keeps a holiday scorecard from December 1st through the 25th:
# of hours spent on holiday cheer
vs.
# of hours spend on holiday stillness
If the number of stillness hours don’t equal or exceed the number of cheery hours by the time the buzzer sounds on December 25th, then I’m fouled out for another year.
What if I changed the rules? Do all my Advent pondering and all my Christmas fa-la-la-la-la’ing have to happen during the exact same 25 days?
This year I’m telling myself no. I can stretch it out and push my guilt aside. After the Christmas crescendo, my pace usually slows the last week of the year. There is more time. Jesus is still near.
In fact, the popular song “The 12 Days of Christmas” isn’t a song about counting down to the holiday, rather the counting up begins on Christmas Day itself and continues eleven days after.
And Epiphany, the day on the church calendar for celebrating the visit of the Magi, isn’t until January 6th. So there is time.
Bonhoeffer stretches out Advent even further. He writes, “Advent is a time of waiting. Our whole life, however, is Advent…[waiting for] the great final Advent, the final coming of Christ.”3
All the individual Advent seasons of our lives, strung together, and held up to light the way for the great final Advent.
I can feel relief in my soul already when I whisper to it:
Go ahead, make sweet treats and pretty packages all tied up with bows. Pull out the family heirlooms, seasonal recipes, and ornaments from your first Christmas as husband and wife. Buy generously. Love widely. Embrace the chaotic holly jolly sprinkled with quiet morning meditations.
Take hope my soul. The pace will get faster, but then it will slow. There will be peaceful moments to meditate on Christ the Child, Christ the Creator, and Christ the King.
As December gives way to January, His light will literally begin to push back the darkness of winter and there will be hope, peace, joy, love, and more Christ. There is no expiration date on awe and wonderment on the arrival of a Savior. Rejoice and be glad all the days of the year.
- From Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt’s essay “Action in Waiting” in the book “Watch For The Light” page 5. ↩︎
- From Skye Jethani’s devotional “The Power & Value of Pondering” published December 29, 2022 on his “With God Daily” app. ↩︎
- From Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s essay “The Coming of Jesus in Our Midst” in the book “Watch For The Light” page 204. ↩︎
Lord, Come Quickly 