It was just a matter of time.
As my buddies on Facebook and Instagram know, we have a massive English bulldog named Herschel who in recent years has commandeered the tree skirt as his Christmas blankie.
Sometimes he drags it away from the tree and snuggles into it. But more often, he manages to carefully maneuver himself under the tree and hangs out there. And it’s a tight squeeze.
A couple of the lowest branches rest on his big ole back and the lights are all right in his face. I don’t get it.
And we plan for this phenomenon. I remind the kids to leave the bottom branches void of ornaments when we’re decorating because, well, Herschel. And even so, we always find one or two on the ground in the mornings.
But Tuesday night (or Wednesday morning) at 1 AM, Brad and I both awoke to a crash. The kids are already gone for the week and the alarm wasn’t going off, so I wasn’t worried. I walked down the stairs, certain a fragile ornament had met its untimely demise on our tile floor.
I was wrong.
I walked into the living room and gasped. “Uhh, the tree’s down!” I called to Brad, who was coming down the stairs with his gun, just in case.
“What?” Brad replied, as he walked toward me.
“The tree. The whole tree is down,” I informed him as he joined me in the doorway.
“Awww, dang it, Herschel,” Brad grumbled.
For one second, I panicked, thinking he was maybe somehow pinned under the tree. “Where is he?” I asked worriedly walking toward the mess.
“He’s over there.” Brad pointed to the other side of the room, where Herschel sat on his OTHER rug. As a bulldog, his face always looks pretty much the same. But if he could ever look freaked out, he did. He was wide awake, ears perked up, staring at the damage.
Now to be fair, the tree wasn’t super stable to begin with. It fell over once while we were decorating it. (Beau caught it just before it hit the ground.) We replaced it in the tree stand several times to get it straight, but it still never seemed super secure. One little nudge from a 70-pound bulldog repositioning on his blankie would have been more than enough to bring the tree down.
So we started cleaning up. We mopped up the spilled water with towels. Brad got the tree upright again and I began to sweep.
There were a number of casualties. Some were shattered beyond repair like my Christopher Radko cigar and the red ball that said Our First Christmas, 2010. (Sniff.) Several others were in pieces, but potentially fixable with some superglue.
“Oh no, Grover,” I mourned as I reached for an old favorite. That thing had been on my family’s tree for as long as I could remember. But it was a clean break, right in half and I knew I could fix it. I picked up the other larger pieces of ornaments that could still be put back together and continued sweeping.
Once I got all the broken pieces and tree needles in a pile, I squatted down on the floor and began to gingerly sift through them.
Brad was grumpily slumped in our big brown chair. “You’re gonna cut yourself,” he told me. “I don’t know why you’re doing that.”
“Because I’m trying to save Christmas!” I informed him, hoping the feigned drama would make him crack a smile. Nope.
“Aw, man. Here’s my Gator’s head.” I held up a piece of the lone UF ornament in the house. “Yeah, well, don’t get cocky,” I told him, lest he be hiding some secret glee under his irritated scowl. “Your Bulldog lost an arm and a leg in the affair.”
After a few more minutes, I was convinced I had recovered everything savable. Brad held the dustpan, I swept the remains into it and we called it a night.
“Well, Herschel,” Brad called to him as we headed back upstairs, “you get The Dumbass Award.”
I busted out laughing and he continued, “If there was ever any doubt, you won it by a landslide.” I was still giggling as I was falling asleep.
I’ve had broken Christmases before, but this Christmas seems feels more broken than its predecessors. The few days before, I had been feeling like the tree on the floor. Decorated and bluffing Christmas joy and peace as best I could, but finally just ending up collapsed in a heap surrounded by brokenness.
As I was driving home earlier that day, I was rattled by a disturbing thought: Satan was trying to take my Christmas. I remembered how my Easters were stained with his dirty fingerprints for several years. And I started to get really mad.
“Oh no,” I informed my enemy, just in case he was listening. “I don’t care WHAT you do. You are NOT taking Christmas from me. Not this year. Not ever.” I immediately shifted my thoughts back to where they belonged: Jesus.
I had been marinating in Christmasy thoughts for a couple weeks. The peaceful nativity scene I set up in our house, the Baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes, Linus preaching Luke 2 in the Charlie Brown Christmas, the Advent readings at church and devotions in my inbox. All is calm, all is bright.
But this time, I saw it all differently.
Jesus may have been born into relative obscurity to our human eyes. But in the spiritual realm, His birth was a declaration of war. The Great Invasion, as John Eldredge calls it. To take some major liberties here just for illustration’s sake, if the Trinity could flick off Satan and his armies of darkness and still maintain its utter purity and holiness, this was the ultimate middle finger.
The King was back to reclaim what was stolen from Him in the Garden of Eden. He actually incarnated as a human to live in His own creation. The prophets had warned of this for generations, but I bet the event still shocked the hell out of the enemy (pun intended).
I let my imagination picture the horror and outrage Satan experienced that night. The King! Here! HERE! If there were any doubt before, any chance God may have been bluffing, that night it was clear to angels and demons alike: God will do what He says He will do. And He will stop at nothing, NOTHING to bring His children home.
He proved it with His birth and then solidified it for all time with His death. The Cross. The trump card.
Satan lost at Christmas. He lost again at Easter. And he’s got one more final defeat in store for him and his followers. John tells us in Revelation 19:
I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose Rider is called Faithful and True. With justice He judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on His head are many crowns. He has a name written on Him that no one knows but He Himself. He is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following Him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Out of His mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. He will rule them with an iron scepter. He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On His robe and on His thigh He has this name written:
KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.
And I saw an angel standing in the sun, who cried in a loud voice to all the birds flying in midair, “Come, gather together for the great supper of God, so that you may eat the flesh of kings, generals, and the mighty, of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, great and small.”
Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to wage war against the Rider on the horse and His army. But the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who had performed the signs on its behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped its image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur. The rest were killed with the sword coming out of the mouth of the Rider on the horse, and all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh.
If you watch the news or read the headlines these days, you could make a reasonable argument that Satan is winning, or maybe has already won.
In our human perception, night of Jesus’ birth looked innocent and sweet when spiritual eyes saw a holy weapon of mass destruction.
I would contend that similarly as our limited vision sees the enemy triumphing again and again through abortion, terrorism, natural disasters, tragedies and disease, God is seeing one last rage-filled temper tantrum from Satan before his inevitable defeat.
And my reminder to myself has become: Wait for it.
I carefully sorted through the broken pieces of ornaments, looking for remnants to be saved, trying not to cut myself. Jesus didn’t play like that.
He reached down and gathered every piece of our shattered world into His mighty hands, no matter how small, no matter how sharp. And the shards our brokenness tore His flesh and spilled His blood. The Cross worked. His temporary death guaranteed our eternal life.
No, Satan doesn’t get Christmas. Satan doesn’t get Easter. And Satan doesn’t get Forever.
So I will stand up my Christmas tree and celebrate my Jesus despite the heartbreak of these final days. My King came here, HERE, to rescue me. To rescue us. Because of His unfathomable love. Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King!
And His birth was the beginning of the end of all pain, suffering and loss. He will wipe every tear from our eyes and make all things new.
Wait for it.
