Emmanuel
I often wonder why I don't hate Christmas.
Odd statement, I know. Most people would wonder why they did hate Christmas. But when the holidays consistently send you into an emotional tailspin, it doesn't really make sense to still enjoy them. Every Christmas I feel the hole. When I don't buy him a present, when we don't go shopping for my mom on Christmas Eve; when there's one less chair around the table. The first Christmas after Jacob died, I only opened one present. No one much felt like doing the present thing. During a time of year so steeped in traditions, you feel it every time one of them breaks because they can't exist without the person you lost.
When you're dealing with grief, the holiday season loses a little bit of its joy and innocence. Instead, it amplifies the truth that the person you love is gone, and nothing will ever be the same.
But, every year, I put my tree up. I listen to Christmas music and watch Christmas movies. And I look forward to it. This year, I started asking myself, why?
At first, it may have been a attempt to bring back a world in which it never happened, a world where Jacob is still here. Maybe I thought that if I kept everything the same it would lessen the loss I felt. Nothing could have been further from the truth. If anything, rigidly holding traditions as they have always been makes it worse. Because, no matter how much you want to, you can't go back. You cannot remain the same.
So, what then, is it all for? Why participate at all in a holiday that is so complicated and messy? Perhaps the reason to participate is exactly that. Because it is complicated and messy.
That is the message of Emmanuel. God choosing to participate in our complicated and messy lives. That first Christmas, Jesus was born in an Israel that was oppressed by Rome, hurting from the tyrannical rule of Herod the Great (you know, the guy that tried to kill Jesus), and longing for the day when they would again have a nation to call their own.
No matter what the old song says, that doesn't sound like all was calm and bright. But, maybe, there was a moment. A moment of calm and bright in the midst of the brokenness when Jesus drew his first breath and exhaled hope into a hurting world. Few in Israel knew it that night (except Mary, Joseph, and some shepherds), but hope had come. And He was not going anywhere, no matter how complicated and messy the world He woke up in was.
Every ornament on my tree represents something that brings me joy. Broadway show souvenirs, one fourth of an ornament set shared by my intern sisters; a hand painted Golden State Warriors ornament I gave to Jacob the last Christmas I had with him. As I hang them, I remember the things and people I love.
The Christmas music I listen to and movies I watch remind me of the joy in the world, whether it is by crying at the end of It's a Wonderful Life or quoting Elf to myself as I laugh (every single time I watch it).
For me, Christmas has ceased to be about all the traditions I held so dear or the perfect Christmas feeling. Because it can't be about that anymore, no matter how much I wish it all could have stayed the same. But, maybe, in slowly letting go of the idea of an idyllic holiday season, I am beginning to embrace a truer, deeper Christmas, one a little more like the first one. One that is complicated and messy, but also one that breathes hope in the most unlikely of places.
I don't think the process of letting go of what was and embracing Jesus in the middle of what is will ever be over on this earth. But, this Christmas, I pray we all give ourselves a little grace. Grace to let go of obligatory traditions. Grace to do something new. Grace to smile and cry at the same time. Grace to release the pressure of pulling off a perfect Christmas. Grace to begin to embrace the mess. To embrace the message of Emmanuel: God with us. And grace to fail in that embracing, knowing that when we can't wrap our hearts around hope, Hope is there to wrap His arms around us.