Just in case I haven’t shared yet, Christmas is my favorite time of the year! Christmas music is playing everywhere, and people are worshiping the Savior (maybe not even knowing it).“Joy to the World,” “Silent Night,” “Go Tell it on the Mountain” proclaim the truth of Jesus. However, every billboard, commercial, and ad shows us what we need in order to have “the perfect Christmas.” If we have the right gifts, the perfect decor, the best behaved children, in the cutest matching jammies, then, and only then, will our Christmas be perfect. Isn’t that the goal?
Sometimes I get stuck on the imperfections of daily life and worry about everything not going as planned. I don’t know about anyone else, but things don’t usually go as planned. Last week the end of my Christmas lights went out on the stairs, so I stopped plugging them in. I didn’t want them on at all if they weren’t perfect. I don’t try to make perfection the goal, but that darn perfectionism tends to sneak in without me even noticing. All of the things that I enjoy at Christmas can also be the things that take away my joy because I become so obsessed with trying to make them “perfect.” The gifts, the parties, the outfits, the pictures, and the concerts are supposed to remind us of Jesus but sometimes they just distract us from the real meaning of Christmas.
Last night I was at one of those concerts. To be honest, I was not necessarily looking forward to this school concert. Don’t get me wrong, I love all things Christmas, especially the music, but my 3 year old was home sick. Also, it’s just hard to motivate this tribe to dress up, behave, and perform in the middle of the week, let alone in the middle of December. The kids were all dressed up and ready to sing. Then, something happened to me while I was sitting in the audience watching my babies belt out Christmas songs. I couldn’t stop crying. All of the emotions of the season just hit me, and I thought about Mary and what the first Christmas was really like. Luke 2:19 says that Mary treasured up all of these things, pondering them in her heart. I was treasuring those moments of watching my kids sing their hearts out, and thinking about how silly it is for me to want perfection. Those little singing babies were so perfectly/imperfect, and I loved every minute. As I was listening to my 3rd grader sing a song called, “How far is it to Bethlehem,” I realized that I wanted to treasure more and perfect less. The answer to the the question in the song was, “its really not that far.” Perfection is not attainable, but Jesus is never far.
I cannot even imagine how imperfect things seemed on that first Christmas. Nothing was nicely tied in a bow and placed systematically under a tree, and yet Mary treasured it all. She stored it away because she knew in her heart how wonderful that day truly was.
So this year, can we help each other remember that Jesus is right here with us, and the whole point of Christmas is not perfection, but Jesus’ birth? Can we be more like Mary and treasure and ponder in the midst of the imperfectly perfect nights? I’m leaving my half lit lights up and I am plugging them in every day to remind myself that it doesn’t have to be perfect to celebrate the child in a manger who is our Prince of Peace.
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