Christmas reign

Whether I like to admit it or not, Christmas is a defining mark of every year. It's wrapped with anticipation and accomplished through practice. It requires clues, closets and comics saved up for wrapping paper. As Garrison Keillor says: a lovely thing about Christmas is that it's compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together. When I whine about the holiday being a lot of work, my husband reminds me of our experiences with shoveling snow. Necessary and to be repeated.

Christmas interrupts down-time, re-arranges personal goals and creates the pangs of homesickness. It tempts the legalist to force a religious connection for the 25th day of the twelfth month and delights the worshiper to expect the divine at any time. To decorate and bake, shop and ship, and assemble the Nativity to somehow include shepherds, manger, and magi is like trying to keep lightning bugs alive and glowing in a glass jar for more than a few days. All those creatures have to eat.

Getting through Christmas is reminiscent of the nearly year-long effort of pregnancy, labor, and delivery. When the older sibling is finally introduced to the newborn, a special gift is unwrapped, one they may not even have known they wanted or needed, but neither life will ever be the same. As if encountering an alien, big brother or sis, wide-eyed with curiosity, gingerly pats the infant and utters lyrics of adoration. Patience blankets the room. Little legs scramble to the bed, the playroom, even to lower kitchen cupboards to collect prized possessions--some of them pretty hilarious--as the baby is circled with the impromptu sacrifices. Peace seems possible, but tranquility will expire as expectations creeping over the horizon forecast sleepless and not so silent nights.

What draws me through Christmas is the world's homecoming of kindred spirits, the promise of sharing intangible gifts, the peace of resting in the work that Jesus finished, God's presence in surprises. As the New Year's calendar conceives another Christmas Day, I resolve--again--to meet its December deadline for delivery. Maybe I'll manage with less fuss over stuff. Fulfilling obligations to others may be a reliable way to happiness, but it's the thankfulness to Christ in all circumstances that creates memories that can't be contained in a shiny wrapped box tied with ribbon. Gratitude brings unexplainable joy like a no strings attached gift card to be spent extravagantly every day.

It might be easy to run away to a monastery, away from the commercialization, the hectic hustle, the demanding family responsibilities of Christmas-time. Then we would have a holy Christmas. But we would forget the lesson of the Incarnation, of the enfleshing of God – the lesson that we who are followers of Jesus do not run from the secular; rather we try to transform it. It is our mission to make holy the secular aspects of Christmas just as the early Christians baptized the Christmas tree. And we do this by being holy people – kind, patient, generous, loving, laughing people – no matter how maddening is the Christmas rush…Fr. Andrew Greeley