Have a Holly Jolly Nontraditional Christmas
It's the week after Christmas and the town is still donned in light-woven garland that rivals the stars. Christmas was different this year - a balmy 60 degrees with sunshine that turned snow piles into puddles and allowed high-strung mothers to send their children to the streets: "Go try out that new bike!" Those of us who have lived in Indiana for any time at all have given up on singing White Christmas and now begrudgingly resign ourselves to the Hallmark channel's fireplace motion picture on Grandma's 42-inch screen - desperate for any hopes of feeling the wintry warmth that comes with a traditional Christmas. my family also ate at Pizza Hut this year, which is unusual but not altogether unsurprising. Dad as a pastor had to emcee two Christmas Eve services and felt that a greasy deep-dish buffet was a more welcoming (or time-effective) feast to celebrate Christ the coming King. We took our family pictures on the 60-degree day clad in denim on denim, a custom I begged for to accommodate the makings of a pun that went something like, "jeangle bell rock." For some reason, my family obliged and we laughed (and cringed) at the nontraditionality of this year's holiday season.
Things were different, and typically this would be disgruntling because if change ever tries to knock on my door, I tend to pretend I'm not home. I've written on this before - I like things to be the way things have been and would opt for the safety of routine rather than the risk of trying something new and finding it less fulfilling than years before. When we do all of the same things, I know that gifts come after breakfast and we do a puzzle until it's onto the next. I know that my younger brother will always slip a puzzle piece in his pocket so that he can be the one to place the final piece - thus deeming himself the lone conqueror of a 550-piece broken canvas of dogs in Paris. I know that we will pile into the minivan - the one that still doesn't have heat but this year it's okay because it's 60 degrees on Christmas - and we will drive to Grandma #2's for more feasting, more gifts, more puzzles, and that will be good. This works for me because it's predictable. It's traditional. I don't have to wonder, therefore I can rest.
Oh, and certainly sometime in there I'll read the story about the baby in the manger and supposedly it's impactful but I've heard the story five hundred times and so yes, I'll sing Glory to God in the Highest but deep down I'll be cold and calloused to the immaculate conception that made angels sing. Halfway through the retelling of mankind's most significant birth, my eyes will gloss over and my mind will turn itself into a to-do list as I inwardly race to accomplish all things before the setting sun waves the world goodbye for the day. Sure, it is wonderful that Mary could sit still on that silent night and simply ponder - simply treasuring the precious gift of the baby in her arms that had come to save the world. But me? No, that won't do. Pondering is not my speed. I'd rather panic. I opt to make my mind race with questions about gifts that still need purchased and people I need to text and ways I can post on facebook so that everyone thinks I am the most fun person ever, and then I need to think about ways I can actually be the most fun person ever so I begin brainstorming fun activities to plan with my friends for the upcoming semester and then I think about whether I should really start dating this boy that I am in like with so first it feels necessary to think of everything I want in a future husband and that leads to internal wedding planning, and while I'm planning I'm reminded that I should be packing for my upcoming trip so I file away the list of who will be invited to the wedding and start compiling a folder of everything that needs to be done in Nepal and next thing I know, the speaker is done reading the Christmas story and for the seventh year in a row, I haven't really heard it at all.
This is how it goes. Here is the danger of my aversion to change and my tendency to idolize the comfort of routine traditions. The world-transforming arrival of a baby-born-king becomes "just another year" with "just another story" and in my sinful earth-centered ego, I convince myself I've heard it all before and I don't really need to again.
So what happens when it's not traditional? What happens when Christmas does look different this year? It means that we go to Pizza Hut for greasy deep dish but it also means that a single-mom waitress who is working overtime to pay her bills is able to get another tip, a tip which might lead to a brighter Christmas for her and her seven kids. As she picks up our marinara-stained plates and the tip that is left on the table, it is a reminder of the sacrifice that Jesus paid, which allows us to sacrifice as well. A nontraditional Christmas means that our friend who is on house arrest tags along and we celebrate the freedom found in Christ - the freedom that is not bound by a location detector on his ankle or strict time constraints, but the future freedom we get to dwell in because Jesus came to this world to save us. A nontraditional Christmas means we look at our denim-clad family picture and remember the family of shepherds, wise men, kings and rulers who traveled to celebrate a new child. It means we walk outside and talk about things like redemption and grace, conversations that would not be had if we were inside working on a puzzle.
Traditions are wonderful, but callousness to the Christmas story is inexcusable. As much as I like things to stay the same and Christmas to be predictable, I am so thankful that it looked different this year. I am thankful that I could experience the miraculous Christmas story in a different way - a way that would not suit any Hallmark movie or winter expectation. 'Tis the season to switch things up, to embrace the discomfort of a different Christmas which draws us back to gleeful celebration of the greatest gift this world has ever received.
Things were different, and typically this would be disgruntling because if change ever tries to knock on my door, I tend to pretend I'm not home. I've written on this before - I like things to be the way things have been and would opt for the safety of routine rather than the risk of trying something new and finding it less fulfilling than years before. When we do all of the same things, I know that gifts come after breakfast and we do a puzzle until it's onto the next. I know that my younger brother will always slip a puzzle piece in his pocket so that he can be the one to place the final piece - thus deeming himself the lone conqueror of a 550-piece broken canvas of dogs in Paris. I know that we will pile into the minivan - the one that still doesn't have heat but this year it's okay because it's 60 degrees on Christmas - and we will drive to Grandma #2's for more feasting, more gifts, more puzzles, and that will be good. This works for me because it's predictable. It's traditional. I don't have to wonder, therefore I can rest.
Oh, and certainly sometime in there I'll read the story about the baby in the manger and supposedly it's impactful but I've heard the story five hundred times and so yes, I'll sing Glory to God in the Highest but deep down I'll be cold and calloused to the immaculate conception that made angels sing. Halfway through the retelling of mankind's most significant birth, my eyes will gloss over and my mind will turn itself into a to-do list as I inwardly race to accomplish all things before the setting sun waves the world goodbye for the day. Sure, it is wonderful that Mary could sit still on that silent night and simply ponder - simply treasuring the precious gift of the baby in her arms that had come to save the world. But me? No, that won't do. Pondering is not my speed. I'd rather panic. I opt to make my mind race with questions about gifts that still need purchased and people I need to text and ways I can post on facebook so that everyone thinks I am the most fun person ever, and then I need to think about ways I can actually be the most fun person ever so I begin brainstorming fun activities to plan with my friends for the upcoming semester and then I think about whether I should really start dating this boy that I am in like with so first it feels necessary to think of everything I want in a future husband and that leads to internal wedding planning, and while I'm planning I'm reminded that I should be packing for my upcoming trip so I file away the list of who will be invited to the wedding and start compiling a folder of everything that needs to be done in Nepal and next thing I know, the speaker is done reading the Christmas story and for the seventh year in a row, I haven't really heard it at all.
This is how it goes. Here is the danger of my aversion to change and my tendency to idolize the comfort of routine traditions. The world-transforming arrival of a baby-born-king becomes "just another year" with "just another story" and in my sinful earth-centered ego, I convince myself I've heard it all before and I don't really need to again.
So what happens when it's not traditional? What happens when Christmas does look different this year? It means that we go to Pizza Hut for greasy deep dish but it also means that a single-mom waitress who is working overtime to pay her bills is able to get another tip, a tip which might lead to a brighter Christmas for her and her seven kids. As she picks up our marinara-stained plates and the tip that is left on the table, it is a reminder of the sacrifice that Jesus paid, which allows us to sacrifice as well. A nontraditional Christmas means that our friend who is on house arrest tags along and we celebrate the freedom found in Christ - the freedom that is not bound by a location detector on his ankle or strict time constraints, but the future freedom we get to dwell in because Jesus came to this world to save us. A nontraditional Christmas means we look at our denim-clad family picture and remember the family of shepherds, wise men, kings and rulers who traveled to celebrate a new child. It means we walk outside and talk about things like redemption and grace, conversations that would not be had if we were inside working on a puzzle.
Traditions are wonderful, but callousness to the Christmas story is inexcusable. As much as I like things to stay the same and Christmas to be predictable, I am so thankful that it looked different this year. I am thankful that I could experience the miraculous Christmas story in a different way - a way that would not suit any Hallmark movie or winter expectation. 'Tis the season to switch things up, to embrace the discomfort of a different Christmas which draws us back to gleeful celebration of the greatest gift this world has ever received.