Christmastime is an extrovert’s dream: the parties, the decorations, the music…it’s everything my enneagram 7’s heart could ever desire. As the calendar advances each year, I romanticize when we’ll finally switch the radio station and put up the tree, eagerly anticipating the splendor to come. Thanksgiving arrives and immediately I am enveloped in the holiday spirit, filled to the brim with excited aspirations of what this Christmas season might bring. But then the weeks roll over: work is busy, calendars have no breathing room, and everyone seems to exhibit a sense of dread. The spectacle feels less like a gift and more like a chore. At this point, I tend to spiral, shaming myself for my sugar-plum daydreams rotting into nightmares until I finally succumb to guilt. Admitting defeat, I wonder… “Am I failing at Christmas?”
I wish so fiercely that Christmas would be like a movie all the time, but no matter how hard I try, that’s just not true. Christmas can be really sad. The news is full of trauma and tragedy. I think about all the people I’ve loved who are no longer here. It’s also December, so I am forced to take stock of the checklist items I’d planned (and subsequently neglected) to accomplish this year. The reality is, Christmas is stressful. Christmas is long. Christmas is overwhelming… But maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be. Maybe we should stop thinking about being sad at Christmas as a failure and more as a symbol for the true meaning of Christmas. When Christ came in the form of a baby, God had been silent for hundreds of years. God’s people were weary. God’s people were downtrodden. God’s people were helpless. And yet, in the form of a baby, a miracle appeared. Perhaps in our own weariness and downtroddenness and helplessness, we are not an indication of our own failure to make the season cheerful and bright. Rather, perhaps our own sadness is an offering, a remembrance of the past that leads us to Christ’s birth. Instead of identifying Christmas as a season of jubilant expectation, we learn to embrace the darkness of winter as a holy season of yearning.
We prepare our hearts during Advent, not just for joyful celebration, but also with hope in the midst of sorrow. Our heartbreak then becomes a holy offering with which we can worship the Christ Child on Christmas morning, singing praises because God loves us so much that God came into the world as a baby. I pray that joy comes on December 25th for you and for me and for the whole broken world in the form of Jesus Christ. May the Christ of hope bless you this holiday season, dear friends!
Rachel Fisher 