Where Are You Christmas

By Leah Dummel

I am struggling this Christmas. I am specifically struggling this week before Christmas. I am struggling specifically with anxiety over the busyness of our daily life that isn’t leaving room for the “fun” busyness of Christmas traditions. We haven’t built gingerbread houses with the kids, we haven’t made it to Christmas at the Zoo, our Advent Box from church remains sitting on our counter with only a single envelope having been opened; and our other chalkboard Advent calendar remains unmarked with LAST YEAR’S CANDY still inside. So many things undone, so many memories left unmade. Our kids have taken turns being sick on and off for weeks, I am working 5 days/week for the first time since having children, my husband is currently (finally) on sabbatical from work but spent the months before working crazy hours to prepare. 

This week before Christmas is filled with normal daily life activities each night until Friday. Things like swim lessons and boy scouts and dog obedience class and Kindergarten Christmas programs. My boys are at the MOST MAGICAL ages (5 and 3) and I am just so worried we aren’t making enough memories and we aren’t creating the magic I expected we would. To say the least, my mental game is less than stellar and my expectations are not even close to being met.

I have been trying to be really intentional about breathing through the chaos and remaining grateful for what we have and who we have surrounding us. I have also been trying to focus on the fact that my mundane may be my boys’ magic. We have a few nativity scenes at our home but the one that has quickly become my favorite is our Little People Fisher Price plastic nativity scene. It’s low to the floor and in perfect reach of the kids. They play with it, they rearrange it, they stare at and ponder it, and they ask questions about it. I was watching our 3 year old play with the baby Jesus the other day and he was hugging it and talking to it and telling Jesus all about his day. And I got choked up and thought “THAT’S IT”! 

That is how Jesus wants us to not only approach Him, but the Christmas season. He wants us to hold Him close, to talk to Him, to come to Him as a child and spend tender authentic time with Him. And in that moment I realized I had been doing it all wrong. Yes, I love building Gingerbread Houses and building them with my children and the magic that brings. BUT, I loved even more the moment at bedtime last week where we sang Silent Night together and they asked me to explain the lyrics to them. I love Advent Calendars and the way they bring the entire family together even if just for a few moments each day. 

But I also love folksy Christmas music playing in the background while we say bedtime prayers and how the secular and the spiritual come together and mesh perfectly. I love that my kids are involved in activities that bring them joy each week but I can’t wait to tell them we are skipping swim lessons this week to bake cookies and watch a Christmas Movie (on a school night, what?!) because the spontaneity of that will create a whole new type of magic for them.

God is growing and stretching me in all sorts of new ways this year. I am continually shocked by His creative process of teaching me more about Him. I am learning to be still, to listen. I am learning to live each day on its own; and not as a constant foreshadow to the future. I am learning that what may seem disappointing and mundane to me could be a completely exciting and magical experience for my children. And I am learning that placing high expectations on the people in my life and the seasons of my life do nothing but create disappointment and pain.

My prayer for you and your family this week of Christmas is to embrace whatever may come your way. Cancel what needs to be cancelled in order to create more peace in your home. Let go of the expectations of the 5,678 things you “wanted” to do this Christmas season to create magic. Chances are, the stress of bringing those activities to life will cancel out the magic it may have created. Take the good with the bad. REST with each other and in God’s promise that began when He sent Jesus as a baby. And try to approach Jesus this season like my 3 year old approaches Jesus at his plastic manger scene. I promise, the magic will happen on its own and you and your children will learn more and enjoy this sacred season a hundred times more.