I don’t think my dream is all that different from most mothers’: a peaceful Christmas tree trimming with my family. What I hoped for was a Christmas card-esque scene of us lovingly taking out each precious ornament and me smiling while telling my sweet children the stories behind each one.
The chasm between dreams and reality is often deep and dark.
I realized that the ideal Christmas scene is probably meant for the movies and not real life. Not when you have two small children.
And not when your expectations are not even remotely based in reality.
This, my friends, is the crux of so many issues that I have brought on myself. Unrealistic expectations, which will obviously go unmet, have been the source of so much torture that I have put myself through.
When in the history of my time with them have my children behaved with perfect poise, like tiny debutantes at a cotillion? Never?! My children are nearly feral, so why do I think it’s realistic to assume all of a sudden they will become little adults? (I don’t say this because my children are extraordinarily undisciplined or incapable of listening to instruction but because they are children. This is a fact that I often forget.)
So, after a full day of me yelling and ornaments getting broken and begging them to JUST GIVE ME A MINUTE BEFORE YOU PULL EVERYTHING OUT OF THE BOXES PLEASE, the clincher came in the form of a broken antler on an animatronic reindeer. This reindeer had been though a lot already, and in my mind, so had I. I yelled for the girls to go to their room and I just sat there in the floor, staring at this dumb reindeer and the antler in my hands. And I fumed. My girls peeked out from the bedroom with wounded eyes and mumbled apologies.
And then I realized how ridiculous it all was. I missed the boat on this one, big time. My girls don’t need a perfect Christmas tree with perfectly placed ornaments and I don’t need to be so dang uptight about my kids being kids.
What my kids need is a mama who will admit when she’s the one with the crummy attitude.
They need a mama who will apologize when she’s been a real Scrooge about sticky hands touching her stuff.
They need a mama who will point them back to Jesus, instead of focusing on all the unnecessary trappings of the holiday season.
I am not good at this. In fact, I’ve struggled HARD lately with having a good attitude. I’m tired, short-tempered, frustrated, and I just want to have that all is calm all is bright kind of holiday season, and so far, I am not calm. I’m not feeling particularly bright.
But isn’t that the truth of the season? The world was in darkness before the Light came. We celebrated the first Sunday of Advent (a day late and without the pretty candles). We read from Isaiah about Immanuel – God with us-- who would be despised and rejected and who would sacrifice Himself anyway. About how His Light would burst forth through the ages to light our paths to Salvation. Isaiah was 700 years early, and there was a long time to wait for the Messiah to come, but He is with us now. His mercies are new every day, every hour, every minute.
So maybe everything isn’t calm or bright. But it can be an opportunity for us to humble ourselves and make things right whenever we screw it up with our families. We are given new chances daily to grow in love and in His light. And I can’t speak for y’all, but that’s probably the Christmas gift I need most.
P.S. I don’t actually buy the idea that it was a silent night. We’ve been sold a bill of goods on that one, y’all. No baby, not even the Savior of the universe, is quiet all the time.)
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Again, eventually these things will be for my email subscribers, but until I get that part of my life together, here they are for you!
This is some of what I'm doing this week!
I am currently:
Listening to A Very Maverick Christmas. I am pretty much obsessed with most of what Maverick City Music puts out, so obviously I was pumped to hear about this. I'm still listening through it, but it's a good mood lifter, for sure.
Reading:
Open Heart Open Home by Karen Burton Mains
I'm nearly halfway finished with it, and I have really enjoyed it. It's about seeing hospitality and our homes as an extension of our gifts (both physical and spiritual) to be used to encourage and uplift our communities. This is something God has laid on my heart lately, and it's been a timely read for sure.
Reading with Jubi:
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe By C.S. Lewis
Jubi is waayyyy into this book. We are using it as a wintry read aloud because she saw an abridged version at her Grammy's house, and she couldn't stop asking about it. We read about a chapter a day during school while she works on her handwriting book.
Writing:
Aside from blog posts, I've written a couple of new poems that are still in the messy not-ready-to-share phase, but hopefully soon I can share some new poems. For those of y'all that are keeping up with my queries, I have yet to hear back from any of the agents I've queried, but I really didn't expect to hear back from them just yet anyway.
I had intentions of recording myself reading this post, but I've got some kind of upper respiratory nasal thing happening that makes it hard to breathe and probably impossible for anyone to stand to listen to me read something!