When You Can’t Find Joy in the Christmas Season

It’s Christmas 1989, and my dad’s black Chevy Beretta is idling out at the curb. Time is up at my mom’s for my sister and me, and now we have to shuffle off to another destination on the other side of town, on the other side of this fractured family tree.

We’d woken up early that morning and tried to rush through the presents and breakfast. We’d packed the night before and hurried to change out of new pajamas and into new sweaters and jeans.

But we still ran out of time.

I wanted to stay, to soak in the sense of place and the blessed carnage of scattered boxes and shredded wrapping paper, but no one blocked off space for that on the calendar.

Photo Credit: Mikaela Hamilton

We had to leave right then — that was the agreement — so we could get over there for the early thing, then onto the lunch thing, then back for the later thing after that. Dad was waiting. We had to get onto his things so that we could get through those things and back later for Mom’s things. So many things, but none of them felt sacred.

I was only seven.

But even then I knew Christmas wasn’t supposed to be that way. Movies, TV, songs and commercials told me so. They spoke of magic and meaning, togetherness and tenderness.

Instead, we found ourselves working out the tense implications of a newly minted custody arrangement. Either pop culture had gotten it wrong or my life had gotten it wrong. Whatever the case, I did not like Christmas anymore. These were supposed to be holy days, but instead they were just busy days.

This is the origin story of my Scroogification.

And here’s the thing: Scrooges like me aren’t born; they’re made. One year at a time, one conflict at a time, one fa-la-la-la-la-la-la at a time. Eventually, anticipation gives way to dread. Excitement gives way to anxiety. Revelry gives way to humbuggery.

I never wanted to declare war on Christmas — I just wanted to dodge the draft altogether. As I discovered along the way, that’s not really an option. Despite my best efforts, I never could opt out of Christmas.

Now, decades later:

I’m a husband and a father.

Despite my baggage, my wife Annie is insistent that we celebrate Christmas in our home. Every year. And I’m working on it—I really am.

I still don’t resonate with the tinsel and trappings and the mess we’ve made of Christmas, but I’ve begun to experience the beauty of Advent: the hope, the peace, the waiting, the longing.

Whereas the way we do Christmas has always felt like veneer to me, I find that Advent has more depth.

The word advent itself means “appearing.”

And it’s meant to be four weeks of space in which we both remember Christ’s first appearing and anticipate his second.

Both joy and conflict are welcome in the Advent season.

You don’t have to paper over your real life with the sheet music to “Jingle Bell Rock.” Advent is an invitation to celebrate the hope of the Incarnation even as we strive and struggle and wait for the world to be set right.

When You Can’t Find Joy in the Christmas Season is a post from: Storyline Blog