the burden of Christmas

For the last few weeks, Christmas has felt less like a meaningful celebration of the Incarnation and more like a giant, hairy elf with terrible body odor strapped to my back. Slowly, agonizingly, this beloved holiday has been driving me into the ground with every step. I smelled it when we introduced our kids to one of our favorite classic Christmas movies and they spent the entire time running in circles around the room and hitting each other. One child, after receiving his gifts, became so fixated on all the gifts he didn’t have that we had to have several Very Serious Conversations. And then there’s those evenings when all I want is a few moments of peace to read one of fifty available Advent devotionals and my two youngest toss banshee screams back and forth like they were playing football. You lay one down and the next just picks up the cry, like some sort of infant relay system.

Of course, it’s not just the kids that get on my nerves around this time of year. It’s everything.

Buying gifts for friends and family becomes a psychotic form of Russian roulette, where our relationship hangs by the thread of dubious knowledge of each person’s deepest longings. In my waking moments, when I could be focusing on the “true meaning of Christmas,” I find myself in a catatonic state, too tired to lift a finger except to push the “next episode” button on The Crown. I feel sick to my stomach half the time from overeating or eating the wrong things or not eating enough of the right things or just because my stomach hates me maybe.

And the music. I’ve invested several months of blood, sweat, and tears in musical offerings for the season’s worship, to come out the end of it sick to death of all the beautiful, meaningful carols I’m supposed to love. (Please know that I love my church dearly, this is just how musicians generally feel at the end of the Christmas season). I’ve been nervous that I might start laughing maniacally at the starting notes of “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” or yell “Yippee-ki-yay, $%^&#**&$^#” in the middle of the Advent candle reading. Thankfully, I’ve only heard “O Holy Night” three times this season. The fourth might signal the end of all things good and holy.

the grinch within

To cut to the chase: over the month of December, I’ve been gradually transforming into our favorite snarling bad banana with the greasy black peel. And before you think too unkindly of me, consider how many times you yourself may have thought this exact phrase: “All the noise, noise, noise, NOISE!!”

I can’t be the only person who goes a little crazy during this season, right? RIGHT? But the craziness around me isn’t the burden I’m talking about. It’s the catalyst of that burden.

It’s very easy for me to feel that if we had just done something differently, all of this would have been a very rosy Christmas memory that would have turned into tradition and eventually be recounted by teary-eyed grandchildren at our funerals. If only we had limited the sugar cookies to one instead of three. If only we had played a board game or gone on a walk instead of watching a movie. If only I could focus on all the deep theology of these carols, or take comfort in repeating the sounding joy. If only I was less selfish and more attentive, more patient, more consistent with discipline, more loving, more gentle – all the things I should be as a parent that I am so often, clearly, NOT.

the confrontation that is Christmas

This is the crushing weight of Christmas, for parents and I suspect, to some degree, for all of us. We recognize that traditions and rituals are valuable, but so many of us find ourselves bent low under the heavy load of our own expectations of the season. We’re terrified of missing opportunities to show our families love and make memories. We’re anxious about offending others or not speaking the truth enough at seasonal gatherings. We’re losing sleep over the trajectory of those closest to us, of our church, of our country, of our world, and this season brings all of those things into sharper focus. We’re worried that we’re not doing enough. We’re worried that we’re doing too much.

And then comes the clarion call of Christian culture everywhere, beckoning us to “keep Christ in Christmas.” So often, this is just another chain around the neck. Another burden on the back. Jacob Marley would be proud if he wasn’t dead as a doornail.

I’d love to inject more Christ into my Christmas, but right about now I’m sliding down my sofa, slowly and surely, like a full diaper down a toddler’s bum. A full diaper with a half-eaten plate of cookies propped up on its expanding waistline and a rising storm of child-wails emanating from the next room. The more I strive to keep Christ in Christmas, the more my efforts are thwarted by my own prodigious inability to do that very thing. Christmas confronts me with the fact that I can’t accomplish what I think I should be doing as a good Christian parent.

Every year, I feel the tension of striving and subsequent failing. I know where I want to be, in mindset and action, but I cannot achieve it. Certainly it’s true that the problem is within me, not within these rituals and reminders. It is my obsessive desire to prove myself worthy, to show God how pious I am, to show that I am of great use to Him and a great dad to my kids. You see, the problem is not that I cannot achieve Christmas nirvana because I’m weak, but that I keep expecting myself to overcome my weakness by my own effort.

the comfort of not having to do all that stuff

The burden of our modern Christmas is like the Law: shot through with a better thing, designed for a better purpose. It reminds us that we are weak and dearly loved, and that yes – all will be well, and all manner of things will be well. But this is true not because of something we muster up within ourselves as good Christians, but because Christ has accomplished for us what we could never accomplish on our own.

This is why Advent is spoken of so often in terms of peace, comfort, and rest. Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak comfort to Jerusalem, for her warfare is ended. Fear not, for I bring good tidings: Jesus has come to save you when you couldn’t save yourself.

All of my struggles and efforts reveal how much I need God. And His response to my need was to reveal His love in the Babe in the manger, the Man on the cross, the Risen Savior. For our Father so deeply loved the world that He sent His only Son to reveal the deep love of the Father to us.

And this only Son longs to give us rest:

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Matthew 11:28-30

Christmas, ultimately, is another opportunity to let go of my striving and receive the free and glorious gift of Christ. In my fallow, frozen ground, the Seed of the manger takes root, and the Messiah lives within me.

a prayer for those burdened by the holidays

For all the things I have done and left undone – forgive me, Father. But for all the things that serve to bring to light my need of You, I give You thanks. For all the reminders that I am weak and You are strong, I give You thanks. For all the things I don’t have to do, or read, or say, or be in order to be loved by You, the devotionals I don’t have to read, the carols I don’t have to sing, the rituals I don’t have to observe, the wars I don’t have to win, the peace I don’t have to locate, the energy I don’t have to gather: I give You thanks.

And I give You thanks that in freedom, I can partake of these gifts.

For the gift of Christ that requires no commensurate gift, no intentional ritual, no offering, excellent or otherwise, no decoration or tinsel: The gift of Your Son, Who takes away the sin of the world, lifts the burdens from our backs, and gives us true and lasting rest – we give You praise.

May You release us again from these burdens into Your arms, You Who transforms everything. May we see with new eyes and know with new hearts the beauty in all of this brokenness, and make something beautiful of it in the name of Christ.