It’s not easy being Christmas. We ask a lot of that one single holiday.
The tree should have perfectly placed branches, lights and bulbs spaced just so. The meal will be straight from Good Housekeeping. Presents flow from under the tree. Each is a surprise and magically the right size and just what the recipient wanted.
Everyone should get along and put aside ill feelings they harbor the other 364 days on the calendar. The children behave so well you wonder if there’s something wrong with them. Marriages are sound, families are loving, houses are clean. Outside a delicate snow falls while stars twinkle above.
(I know. How can it be snowing, and the stars are out? Work with me here.)
It’s a holiday and a holy day, the hollyest and holiest. Church service will fill our souls with redemption, our hearts with love, and our ears with carols. Antsy kids behave in the pews, hands folded, the little angels you always imagined they could be.
We all grew up with this ideal Christmas in our heads. It was on TV, magazine covers, and Christmas cards. If you’re my age, you know that the Bing Crosby/Perry Como Christmas Special ended with the entire cast on stage, crooning in front of a toasty fireplace. Everything was comely and bright, Vietnam and Watergate be damned.
Of course, it’s an impossibly high standard we set for this one single day, the 359th of the year. Christmas is good, but not that good. Like all notions of human perfection, it crashes headlong into reality.
The stuffing gets burnt in the oven and sets off the smoke alarm. Somebody brings up Hunter Biden after too much wine. The cat knocks your grandma’s glass ornament off the tree, and it shatters into a thousand pieces right where the kids are sitting to open presents.
Warm loving kindness should replace animosity and acrimony. But if you’ve been steeped in those the last 52 weeks, it’s hard to shed them in a day, even if angels appeared above Bethlehem 2,000 years ago.
As if it wasn’t enough to ask this one little holiday to give us peace and good will, it’s supposed to save our economy, too. There is nothing in the Gospels about shopping unless you assume the Kings had to go to wherever you bought gold, frankincense, and myrrh back then. I just checked. You can order frankincense and myrrh from Amazon. Of course.
I have been blessed in so many ways with loving parents, a great wife, and wonderful children. But looking back, I’m still looking for that perfect Christmas. When I was a kid, I circled things in the Sears Christmas catalog, toys near the back. Then I would find some of them under the tree Christmas Eve when we opened presents. I remember wishing a little bit that I could be surprised by a gift. Which was asking a lot of my ridiculously busy mom.
As a parent, I wanted to create Christmases that would sit warmly in our children’s memories when they grew up. Hopefully we did okay. But there were moments that felt too rushed, as we tried to do too many things. Then there were times the gifts were too many. There’d be a small hill of presents, and nothing could be appreciated in that. Talk about your First World problems.
Part of it was that impossible balancing act between Santa and Jesus. Face it, it’s tough for a baby in a crib to compete with the jolly elf who brings wondrous things in a voluminous sleigh.
When our first born, Anna, was little, I decided we weren’t going to let the commercialization of Christmas spoil this child. Gifts were going to show up under the tree, but they were brought by the Baby Jesus. I hadn’t really thought through how Jesus was going to manage procurement and delivery. Anna was only two or three, so details could be sketchy.
It was back then, that a line that lives in family lore was uttered. Anna had received a Cootie game among her gifts. When asked by her aunt what she got for Christmas, Anna said excitedly, “Baby Jesus bring me bugs!”
Eventually we gave in to the Santa ruse. It’s hard to compete with Santa’s public relations team. After that was the tug and pull between getting stuff and generosity, between selfish and selfless. I’m still trying to get that balance right for myself.
Another problem for this heavily burdened holiday, whatever challenges you are facing in your life are going to be intensified that day. If a relationship is strained, it will be doubly so. If someone close to you is fighting illness or stress, that will cloud your Christmas Day. That’s to be expected as we live lives connected to others.
Then, there are those we Christmassed with in the past who aren’t here. Again, it is natural that grief cuts deeper when we gather. I remember the year after my brother died when I was eighteen and Dean was sixteen. Christmas felt like there was giant hole in the family. Still a hole, 48 years later.
As we try to balance and auto-correct Christmas, there is one tool I’ve found helpful. Every year since 1965, I’ve watched “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” Before streaming, I had to search out when CBS would broadcast that. I took my future wife on a date to a bar to watch it once, which should have told Pam something about what she was getting into.
If you’ve not seen it, spoiler alert! In the scene I’m convinced is the greatest in television history, a frustrated Charlie Brown yells, “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about!”
Linus responds with quiet assuredness, “Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about.”
Moving to center stage, Linus asks, “Lights, please.”
With spotlight in the still auditorium, Linus begins, “And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them; and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, ‘Fear not.”
Linus sets his blanket down and lifts his arms. “For behold, I bring unto you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you. You shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.’”
Linus picks up his blanket and walks off the stage. “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.” Not much to add to that.
We put a lot on Christmas, but it comes down to a simple message. Merry Christmas.