I seem to have an annual freak-out during the week after Thanksgiving.  I become stressed and overwhelmed in planning and scamming for the “perfect” Christmas.  I want to bake everything and have my cookies turn out magazine-cover beautiful.  I want to find everyone on my list a gift that will change his/her life.  I want to make gifts.  I want to decorate creatively.  I want to find unique ways to tell, show, and demonstrate the meaning of the season, and let the important people in my life know how much they mean to me.

This only lasts a few days to a week.  Then, I come to my senses.  I realize that Christmas is a special day, but it is just one day, and I am not going to single-handedly make or break anyone’s Christmas.  The pressure fades.  I have also been thinking this year about some of my favorite memories of Christmas past–and you know what they all have in common?  The moments that are most memorable to me were all unexpected, unplanned, and spontaneous.  That really takes the pressure off!

I would like to share a few of those memories with you.

• A few years back, my grandmother lost her brother just a few days before Christmas. This was especially difficult for her because he was her last close living relative.  On Christmas Eve, I was on my way to see my boyfriend (now husband) and decided on a whim to stop and see my Grandma first.  All of the family would be with her on Christmas Day, but she was alone on Christmas Eve.  She was so happy to see me!  We had a nice visit at her kitchen table, eating her Christmas cookies and candy.  We sang some Christmas songs together from her hymn book, and I watched her open her the gifts my mom and aunt had put in her Christmas stocking earlier.  It was good for both of us, and a good time–one of those special moments when I knew that I was exactly where I was supposed to be.  This visit was also nice because on the actual Christmas Day, she is busy preparing food and serving 30-40 family members dinner, so a moment to visit is rare.  This special Christmas Eve we had together is one of my favorite memories.
• Another favorite memory goes back quite a bit further.  I was seventeen and my older brother and I were having Christmas with my dad.  My parents hadn’t been divorced for very long, so holidays were still a little difficult and awkward as we tried to find our way between old traditions, new traditions, and a new way of being a family.  I remember the three of us were gathered by the fireplace in my dad’s newly finished house.  My dad had a bottle of sparkling grape juice (it might have been champagne–not sure) that he opened, and the three of us had a Christmas toast.  That year, my dad had carefully shopped and selected special Christmas gifts for my brother and me.  This was a great surprise because my dad is normally one to give money, and I was touched that he had taken the time to think about what we might want and to go shop for us himself.
• One more to share–this was especially a fun one.  When I was single and renting a house by myself, my mom bought me an artificial tree one year before Christmas.  It was so exciting to me to have my own tree and own decorations!  I didn’t have very many Christmas ornaments, so I went on a shopping trip to some special stores and bought the ornaments that I thought were especially beautiful to adorn my tree.  I still have those ornaments, and when I see them they bring back the joy of that first Christmas tree I decorated on my own.

God has such neat plans for us, even when we are unaware.  Let’s not get so caught up in our own plans and holiday doings that we miss the wonder and joy of unexpected moments of joy.  I was reminded when watching the news the other day, that for many, many people, the Christmas season is a time of depression and loneliness.  I pray that we will all be sensitive to how God might use us to strengthen and encourage others during this season.

I must confess, I was a little bummed out when Thanksgiving passed, and I faced the fact that I wasn’t going to be able to do much Christmas decorating this year.  This is our second year of living in an “under construction site” and it just isn’t practical to try to decorate this much.  I did drag out a box of the sparse decorations we used last year, mainly consisting of a couple of strings of lights that my Sweetie hung around an evergreen in the front yard to surprise me.  I remember the night he hung those lights, I had supper all ready, and I was waiting for him to come in.  I looked out the window, and saw his truck sitting in the driveway, for a really long time, but I didn’t say anything.  Finally, he came in the house, and told me to look outside.  What a surprise it was to see those Christmas lights on our little tree.  All through the season, I enjoyed looking outside and seeing that tree ablaze with twinkling lights, and being reminded of my husband’s thoughtfulness.  This year, my Sweetie convinced me that finishing the roof on the addition was more important than hanging Christmas lights. So, I relented.

Then, I remembered these little Christmas ornaments I had tucked away in a bag.  My Sweetie brought them home the weekend before Thanksgiving from a craft fair in town.  I put them way, not even looking at them very closely.  When I got them out again, I noticed the details of their little faces and outfits, appreciating their hand-made details, and realized how cute they were and how much I liked them.  They will go on next year’s tree, and they are more special now because they have a little history.

Lately I’ve been telling myself that the trouble with getting everything you want all at once is that you have nothing to look forward to.  It’s nice to count a tree decorated with my Sweetie’s ornaments among the things to look forward to in 2010.