What I like and don’t like about Christmas…
It’s the most conflicted time of the year. Most eagerly anticipated by children—highly stressful to many adults. A time of giving and a time of adding debt. Worship and idolatry. Unconditional love and avid self-interest. Family traditions and perilous travel plans. Let’s face it—love and hate.
My original plan was to write about what I like about the season. That got me to thinking about all the things I didn’t like (love and hate are too strong of words). And so I combined them.
Like: The time off your regular schedule. For teachers, Christmas break is heaven. For almost everybody, it means at least some extra time. Even if you’re retired, you get extra time with loved ones who aren’t.
Don’t like: The hustle and bustle. Time off should mean relaxation. At Christmastime, everyone is in a hurry. I was at Target last Saturday morning—a madhouse. The only thing worse was the traffic getting there.
Like: The preparation. There’s something comforting about going up in the attic and pulling down ten crates of Christmas paraphernalia. Opening them up and rediscovering something that you had entirely forgotten about. Believing that it does get easier to put the same stuff up (with a few additions, of course) year after year. And, yes, it is still glorious to plug everything in and have it all light up.
Don’t like: The preparation—(two sides to this coin): The physical lifting does get harder. Going through the crates makes you realize how much useless junk you have. (I’ll bet the thrift stores of America have a thousand tons of strings of lights. My estimation of how many of them still light up: 73%). When you are putting up decorations, there is always something that goes wrong. Always. And now you have ten semi-empty crates to put somewhere until you fill them again after Christmas.
Like: The charity. There is definitely a spirit of giving that pervades the Christmas season. I think it is God-inspired…but it is also a way for us to look away from our own lives and help others. We need that in stressful times. I was a Salvation Army bellringer one Christmas. It was amazing to watch the world go by like that. Now I always stop and give them something.
Don’t like—(ahh, her comes the Scrooge): The gifts. It seems so… (My wife read this one and just looked at me. Yeah, I definitely have a little Scrooge in me. I repent.)
Like: Family. Duh. It’s when they or you drive away that you realize how important it was to have some time with them. Cousins becoming true friends. It’s all very complex—and it can sometimes become stressful. But you ride away knowing it was time well-spent. At least I do.
Don’t like: The travel. I’m almost paranoid about it. My daughter is moving to Squamish, British Columbia. If we have a Christmas out there, I’ll probably arrive mid-December and leave mid-January. I want to be nowhere near an airport nowhere near Christmas. And is there any place you really want to drive in December? (Karen wasn’t crazy about this one either…but I stick to my guns. I would take her to a cabin in Yellowstone—just not at Christmas.
Like: The real music. Our church does a cantata every Christmas. Caroling is cool from both sides. I love it when the church goes dark and we sing “Silent Night” as we light the candles at Christmas eve service. And there are always songs or hymns that set the perfect tone for where you are at that moment. (I’ll never forget the first time I heard Robert Earl Keen’s “Merry Christmas to the Family.”)
Don’t like: The rest of the music—I’m sure that most of you know what I mean.
Like: The vibe of Christmas. I think it even transcends Christianity. Good will toward humankind. We look at those less fortunate with compassion. We see our neighbors as peers. We accept our common humanity. We are more hopeful.
Don’t like: The stress. I don’t understand it, but it is infectious. People worry more at Christmas. Is that right, or is it just that their worries are focused on one particular holiday? Do exchanges become sharper more quickly? Is it just me, or is there a general sense of relief when the day is over?
Like: The meaning of Christmas. Amazing. We are so separated from our loving Creator that He decides to become one of us. Not to appear to us or dazzle us—to be exactly like us. To show us what He is like in a way we can see. And it works—humanity is reconciled to God. Believe.
Don’t like: Most of us don’t get it.
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