It was Christmas Eve of 2010. My first Christmas married to Brad. My first Christmas as a stepmom. Brad’s first Christmas as a stepdad. The kids’ first Christmas as stepkids. A completely new season of life.
A tidal wave of emotions was crashing over me as I helped my mom cook in the kitchen. I took a break and did the only thing I could do to deal with all the feelings. I sat down at the computer and began to write. This is what came out:
Broken Christmas
Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.”
Luke 5:31Oh Christmas.
The season brings about such a strange mix of emotions for so many people. The joy we are supposed to be feeling is so obvious. Christ coming into the world to set about the greatest rescue mission of all time. Even those who aren’t celebrating Christ’s birth use the season to give gifts and spend time with family. Yes, we all know what we’re supposed to be feeling. Joy. Peace. And hope.
And yet the weight of the holiday also triggers a number of conflicting feelings.
Missing loved ones are grieved. Another year passes without the goals we thought we’d accomplish. Finances are stretched. Old pain is dug up. Anyone who has ever been through anything at all feels it at Christmas.
This Christmas is feeling especially poignant for me and my new little family. Brad and I have grieved the brokenness of Christmas individually and together, for ourselves, yes, but mostly for our kids.
We wanted our kids to have perfect Christmas. Mother and father in the same home, gathered around the tree, opening gifts on Christmas morning. No missing pieces. No broken hearts. No what-ifs or if-onlys. At least just the illusion of the perfect Christmas for as long as we could protect them from the life ‘out there.’ They would learn the difficulty of budgeting, traveling, shopping, cooking, etc. soon enough. But if they could just think Christmas was perfect, we could sleep at night.
But alas, the best we could do is a broken Christmas. Two broken families with some parents and not others, with some grandparents and not others, getting some gifts but not others. I mean, I certainly felt like I had it all growing up. And that’s what I wanted to give Caroline.
I pondered this as I was helping mom cook in the kitchen. The brokenness of this Christmas. And I was starting to get terribly sad. This is not what God intended for Christmas. We humans in all our sin wrecked something else God intended to be perfect and beautiful.
Or did we?
I began to take note of the first Christmas and realized it was far from perfect. A long, difficult trip. ‘No Vacancy’ signs everywhere. Crowded streets. A cold night. Mary giving birth without the help of mother or girlfriends. A feeding trough for a bassinet. A shady celebration with shepherds.
If any child deserved a perfect Christmas, it was Baby Jesus. And if any parent could have provided it, it was God. But God allowed His Son to be born in obscurity and skepticism. Jesus’ birth was shrouded in controversy from conception. He wasn’t born in comfortable conditions. He wasn’t hailed as the newborn king. He was just ‘that poor kid who had to be born in the stable because his folks couldn’t find a room. Gotta hate that.’
Mary and Joseph felt judged and rejected by family and friends. They felt like they didn’t have enough anything. Not enough time. Not enough money. Not enough stuff. Their Christmas was not spent surrounded by their family, but by strangers. And yet, they rejoiced.
No, the first Christmas was not a perfect Christmas. Indeed, the first Christmas was a broken Christmas as well. So why in the world should we expect any different?
Christmas is not a day to pretend all is right with the world, but to acknowledge life’s flaws and our need for a Savior, and celebrate regardless. Christmas is not about perfection, but about redemption.
My King, we praise You for Your birth. For Your crazy magnificent plan. Lord, You didn’t come to give us a perfect Christmas. You came because we are so hopelessly imperfect. You came to save us. And God, while we’re here, no Christmas will be the perfect Christmas. No day will be easy. No family will be without struggle. And no heart will be unscarred. But You came to make a way home for us. So may we focus on preparing the way for You in our hearts and lives. And Jesus, free us from the desire of perfection from anything other than You. You alone are the perfection and wholeness we long for. Fill us with Yourself this Christmas. Glory in the highest to You, our King and Redeemer. And Happy Birthday.
I posted it to my previous blog and linked it to Facebook. The amount of response surprised me. What I had written deeply resonated with many.
One of these days I will actually believe King Solomon when he says, “There is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9). If I’m feeling it, dealing with it, struggling with it, there is a high probability that someone else is too.
My Christmases as a child were nothing short of magical in my young eyes. Santa always made a shockingly generous appearance. My parents, grandparents and other relatives showered my sisters and me with gifts.
We had delicious breakfast casserole and cinnamon rolls for breakfast. We’d play with our bounty for a while, then go get cleaned up and dressed and help get ready for the big Christmas dinner, which was always, of course, perfect.
This continued through college and then I got married. The magic continued as Christmas morning held even more love with a new husband in the mix.
A few years later, I brought my newborn daughter home from the hospital on Christmas evening. I had missed the breakfast casserole and cinnamon rolls, spending Christmas morning in my hospital room waiting to be discharged. But that night, with my two-day-old baby in my arms, surrounded by gifts and family, I didn’t think life could get much better and my heart nearly exploded with gratitude.
And then, the perfection ended.
The following Christmas was forced and awkward. The Christmas after, I was a single mom. Most of the pieces were still in place, but the magic was gone. The spell was broken. And suddenly Christmas was equal parts joy and pain.
A few years later, Brad and I decided to merge our two little broken families into one and our first Christmas was only weeks after our wedding. Yes, there were many, many feelings to sort through that day.
Since then I have experienced my first Christmas ever without my parents and sisters, and my first Christmas ever without my daughter.
And there are tears every year. Either the night before as I try to sleep or the in the morning before I emerge from our room to do Christmas Day. I have to purge the pain behind a closed door so my family will see only joy. Christmas is not a time for sadness. Only joy, right?
But the older I get, the more comfortable I’m becoming with imperfection. In Christmas, and life in general. And I’m more willing than ever to just let things be what they are instead of trying to make them into something they’re not, or worse, PRETEND they’re something they’re not.
I’m not exaggerating when I say that the movie Inside Out blew my mind. Feelings were finally depicted in a way that I could understand. Sadness is not to be avoided at all costs, but is critically important to the story. And memories don’t have to be completely good or completely bad. They can be both/and.
These days as I prepare for another imperfect, broken Christmas, I’m not approaching it with inner dread and a fake smile. I’m letting it be what it is. The magic of perfection has been replaced with the deep comfort and fullness of real, for better or worse.
And I want it all. The good and the bad. The highs and the lows. They’re all precious. They’re all valuable. They all count. And they all get airtime with me on Christmas.
Because as I said five years ago, Jesus didn’t come to earth to initiate the perfect Christmas. He came to heal the sick, bind up the brokenhearted and set captives free.
He didn’t wait for the world to get its act together before He came. He showed up anyway, walked right into our brokenness and left with God and sinners reconciled. Amen and amen.
Embrace the brokenness this Christmas. And let the tears mingle with your smile as you celebrate the coming of a Savior who makes all things new.
Merry Broken Christmas.
