Why We Do Christmas

This was going to be my annual Christmas newsletter, and it got too long.  I had to start over and do something different.  But here's the original:

I took on too many Christmas projects this year.  I admit it.  I thought I was Super Woman and it turns out that I’m not.  Shopping and wrapping gifts for what totals to be about 22 people.  Decorating the house to make it glow with merry Christmas cheer.  Making a little stuffed Nativity to keep under the tree for the kids to play with.  Baking pumpkin rolls and biscotti for friends and neighbors.  Sending out 85 Christmas cards.  Writing, printing and folding the ridiculous newsletter that you are now reading.  And then I thought it would be a good idea to make some Christmas gifts.  Yes, MAKE them.  I thought it would be cute to make all of my nieces and nephews and my own two children their own little personalized patchwork pillow with their name embroidered on it.  I was well into the project before I realized that many of them have three-syllabil names.  What was I thinking?  I’ll have to sew my fingers to the bone to get all eight pillows done by Christmas, because I wasn’t struck with my brilliant idea until several days after Thanksgiving.

One day last week I was deeply entrenched in all of these projects, plus a few that I forgot to mention.  It was nearing eleven o’clock in the morning.  I was sitting on the living room floor in my bathrobe, wrapping paper strewn everywhere, Christmas music wafting from the CD player in the kitchen.  There were several dozen biscotti cooling on the kitchen counter, the sink was full of dishes, Patience was running around the house wearing a tu-tu and rubber boots and Benaiah was rolling on a blanket on the floor next to me.  He was probably naked.  I don’t quite remember.  Just when I realized that Patience had gotten into my sewing basket and was scattering straight pins around the house, Ben called. 

I answered the phone while changing Benaiah’s diaper and picking up straight pins at the same time.  “Hello?”

“Hey, Babe!”  His voice was full of Christmas cheer.  “Would it really throw off your day if I came home right now?”

I glanced frantically around at the mass chaos while Benaiah peed on the blanket because I hadn’t gotten his diaper on yet.

“Um, no!  That would be great!”  I lied quickly, got off the phone, and desperately tried to regain some order to the house before he got home.

I failed.  When he walked in the door 30 minutes later, I was still in my robe, the dishes were still in the sink, Patience was still oddly clothed, and Benaiah was still mostly naked.  I’m not sure what I did with that 30 minutes.  I think I picked up straight pins.

Ben stood in the door and surveyed the destruction.  “Wow.”  He said.  “You really do get things cleaned up before I come home.”

Just then our neighbor drove up, so I rushed to slice some lemon bread and make coffee.  Ben disappeared into the bedroom to change.

An hour or so later our neighbor was gone, and I still, STILL hadn't finished anything. Dishes, wrapping, cleaning and sewing all awaited me. The children were not yet clothed properly, and neither was I, so I headed to the bedroom to get dressed.  Finally.

That’s when I saw that I had left Ben’s main Christmas gift from me laying out on the bed.  He had called when I was in the middle of wrapping, and I had forgotten that I left it out.   I went and found him in the carport.

“Um, Babe, did you see something when you went in the bedroom earlier?”

His eyes darted around nervously as he tried to think up a good Christmas lie.  Tears pooled in my eyes and my voice squeaked as I tried not to cry.  “You saw it, didn’t you?  I can’t believe I forgot I left it laying there!”

He came and wrapped his arms around me, because he’s wonderful like that.  “Don’t worry about it, Babe.  I just barely saw it out of the corner of my eye and I looked away, so I don’t know exactly what it is.  I’ll still be a little bit surprised.”

I cried into his plaid flannel shirt for a minute, then shuffled dejectedly back into the house to do dishes.  I stood there looking at the basket full of Christmas card envelopes to be addressed, the counter full of biscotti to be wrapped and put away, the pile of presents still to be wrapped, the sewing basket full of pillows yet to be finished, .  I stood there and I looked at it all and I thought, “Why?  Why in the world am I doing all this?”

Then my gaze rested on the my children happily playing on the brightly colored Christmas quilt I had spread on the living room floor at the foot of the Christmas tree.  Benaiah was rolled over on his side, holding a corner of the quilt and cramming it in his mouth.  Patience was quietly playing with the stuffed Nativity that lives under the tree.  She glanced up at me and held up the little baby Jesus that we keep wrapped like a gift until Christmas morning.  She cradled the tiny gift and said, “Look, Mommy!  This Baby Jesus!  This God!” 

I left the dishes, the biscotti, the pillows and the wrapping and crawled down onto the Christmas quilt with my kids.  I tickled Benaiah’s fat belly, pulled Patience onto my lap, and picked up the red-wrapped Baby Jesus.

Yes, I remembered.  That is why I do all of it.  Christmas is a lot of work.  Indeed it is.  It takes effort to make it special and memorable and different from the day-to-day routine.  But is there anything, ANYTHING routine about God sending His one and only son to earth in the form of a tiny baby?  That is not routine.  That is unusual, mysterious, miraculous.  And it was a huge part of a story that forever changed our relationship with God Himself.  Because of the baby in the manger on that starry night who grew to become the ultimate sacrifice, we can approach God with confidence.

That's a story worth putting effort into.  I want my kids to grow up knowing that Christmas is a very, very big deal.  Not because of the presents and the food and the fun, but because of Jesus.  But I will use the gifts, the baking, the making and the giving as tools to teach them about the beautiful Nativity story.  The tree, the gifts, the food and the mess that comes with it all.  I will continue to put enormous effort into all that Christmas entails because it is an enormous story that deserves enormous recognition. 

Because its worth it to remember.