Are you Christmas-weary? I am feeling just a little bit Christmas-weary. What does that mean exactly? I don't really know. Exactly. I think its a new term I just now coined. If you choose to use it, feel free to pay me for the rights to the phrase. Drop-offs can be made to my mailbox. Smiles.
Christmas-weary......well. I love my freshly cut Christmas tree......and I got some new decorations for it this year. They keep sliding off of the long pine needles. I find them on the carpet and I bend over and pick them up and try to find a new branch to secure them....and I do this every day multiple times a day. Roger and I were gone tonight.
When we got home, I saw a chewed up cardboard box in the middle of the living room floor. I asked Roger, "Is that a box you need? Like, did you order something important" Christmas-weary means that every day we are getting more and more boxes in the mail. Some are just household items, and some might be gifts.....only dad really knows. Later, Roger said.....why are there chocolate wrappers all over the floor? Apparently we received a box of Christmas chocolates....and the dogs got to them first. I know, I know, chocolate is bad for dogs. Tonight.......who really cares.
Christmas-weary means there are so many programs and games and events and concerts......everyone wants their chance to celebrate the season of joy and giving and the birth of the Christ-child. As I am travelling to and from these events, the radio voice urges me to slow down, be less busy, savor the season of Jesus' birth.......but how do I do that? Refuse to go to my children's programs? Lets be real. Christmas-weary is built into the season. It is the grand conflict of the obligation to remember the reason for the season, fighting get it all in, get it all done. It's a crazy game of cat and mouse and yes. We will keep playing it. I am not skipping Christmas. (Although I Loved the book.....and the movie Christmas With The Kranks is the cinema version of it...check it out if you have not yet....it is so so worth it!)
Christmas-weary means I am a slave to this creepy little Santa counter thingy we got a few years ago. It counts down the days and hours and minutes and seconds until Christmas is here. It is supposed to be exciting but lets face it.....the excitement is for the children. For the mama, it is more tyranny of the urgent. It is planning and shopping and cooking and baking and making sure it all comes out right. It is regular conversations with our younger kids, and reading books that emphasize the importance of Christ at Christmas, and the lesser emphasis on Santa and gifts and stuff......and all of this prioritizing and emphasizing makes me Christmas-weary.
In about an hour, it will officially be 12 days til Christmas. Tonight I am calling out the Christmas-weary among us. Join me, will you? Sit in a dark room and enjoy the lights on the Christmas tree. Pause and look at the stockings hanging somewhere if you have them....and count off your blessings. For me, we have 5 precious stockings plus one for the dogs....plus......one more. They represent my legend and my future....and I will fill them with sweets and treats and things they enjoy so that on Christmas morning I can watch them all dig their hands deep into the socks and pull out things they like......stockings are a mom thing in our home. Make your shopping list for special foods you will serve for the Christmas holiday. Plan to use the good dishes and real table cloths and napkins. Play the Christmas music and find all the picture books you can about Christmas. Even the Curious George and Charlie Brown ones......build traditions in the home and for your people......even if it makes you Christmas-weary.
After all.....it isn't about me or my to-do list or my crazy busy schedule. It isn't about the approval I will get if I choose the perfect gifts or wear the perfect outfit to a party. It isn't about my skill at cooking or shopping or decorating. It is about my ability to shine a light on something special. Something that is our inheritance in Christ and our story as His people. We are in this world, not of it....so we have permission to do Christmas.....all the way to weariness. I have a hope and goal to impart the importance of Christmas to my people. Some of it is busy and worldly. Some of it is weighty and eternal. Weary me will try to accomplish both again this year. I have written myself into a readiness for the next 12 days of Christmas(weary).
May your days be merry and bright and may all your Christmas' be white.....
Christmas-weary......well. I love my freshly cut Christmas tree......and I got some new decorations for it this year. They keep sliding off of the long pine needles. I find them on the carpet and I bend over and pick them up and try to find a new branch to secure them....and I do this every day multiple times a day. Roger and I were gone tonight.
When we got home, I saw a chewed up cardboard box in the middle of the living room floor. I asked Roger, "Is that a box you need? Like, did you order something important" Christmas-weary means that every day we are getting more and more boxes in the mail. Some are just household items, and some might be gifts.....only dad really knows. Later, Roger said.....why are there chocolate wrappers all over the floor? Apparently we received a box of Christmas chocolates....and the dogs got to them first. I know, I know, chocolate is bad for dogs. Tonight.......who really cares.
Christmas-weary means there are so many programs and games and events and concerts......everyone wants their chance to celebrate the season of joy and giving and the birth of the Christ-child. As I am travelling to and from these events, the radio voice urges me to slow down, be less busy, savor the season of Jesus' birth.......but how do I do that? Refuse to go to my children's programs? Lets be real. Christmas-weary is built into the season. It is the grand conflict of the obligation to remember the reason for the season, fighting get it all in, get it all done. It's a crazy game of cat and mouse and yes. We will keep playing it. I am not skipping Christmas. (Although I Loved the book.....and the movie Christmas With The Kranks is the cinema version of it...check it out if you have not yet....it is so so worth it!)
Christmas-weary means I am a slave to this creepy little Santa counter thingy we got a few years ago. It counts down the days and hours and minutes and seconds until Christmas is here. It is supposed to be exciting but lets face it.....the excitement is for the children. For the mama, it is more tyranny of the urgent. It is planning and shopping and cooking and baking and making sure it all comes out right. It is regular conversations with our younger kids, and reading books that emphasize the importance of Christ at Christmas, and the lesser emphasis on Santa and gifts and stuff......and all of this prioritizing and emphasizing makes me Christmas-weary.
In about an hour, it will officially be 12 days til Christmas. Tonight I am calling out the Christmas-weary among us. Join me, will you? Sit in a dark room and enjoy the lights on the Christmas tree. Pause and look at the stockings hanging somewhere if you have them....and count off your blessings. For me, we have 5 precious stockings plus one for the dogs....plus......one more. They represent my legend and my future....and I will fill them with sweets and treats and things they enjoy so that on Christmas morning I can watch them all dig their hands deep into the socks and pull out things they like......stockings are a mom thing in our home. Make your shopping list for special foods you will serve for the Christmas holiday. Plan to use the good dishes and real table cloths and napkins. Play the Christmas music and find all the picture books you can about Christmas. Even the Curious George and Charlie Brown ones......build traditions in the home and for your people......even if it makes you Christmas-weary.
After all.....it isn't about me or my to-do list or my crazy busy schedule. It isn't about the approval I will get if I choose the perfect gifts or wear the perfect outfit to a party. It isn't about my skill at cooking or shopping or decorating. It is about my ability to shine a light on something special. Something that is our inheritance in Christ and our story as His people. We are in this world, not of it....so we have permission to do Christmas.....all the way to weariness. I have a hope and goal to impart the importance of Christmas to my people. Some of it is busy and worldly. Some of it is weighty and eternal. Weary me will try to accomplish both again this year. I have written myself into a readiness for the next 12 days of Christmas(weary).
May your days be merry and bright and may all your Christmas' be white.....
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