The Unhealthy Expectations of Christmas Cutouts and Icicle Lights

 

The Christmas Season can stir up unhealthy expectations in us.

Last Christmas I wrote about my own high expectations, as a mom to two very young children, and how I planned to make big plans for our Christmas season, and how they all came tumbling down with my Christmas tree. Literally. {Read that post, about Keeping Christmas Imperfect, here}

With a season devoted to gatherings, decorations, cookies, shopping, wrapping, lights, visiting neighbors, parties, gift exchanges, and many more {usually too many} activities surrounding the holidays, it’s easy to get lost. And overwhelmed. And tired– really, really tired.

And then you find yourself on December 31st, the tree a little droopy and the eggnog in the fridge expired, and you wonder just what your Christmas season was all about. You may be a few gifts “richer” and a few cookies…heftier….but the season is over. And how has it left your soul?

 

Tired?

Unfulfilled?

Unsatisfied?

Hungry, still?

 

 

A Revolutionary Shift of Focus

 

This is why I am choosing to not focus on the Christmas Season this year. Instead I am choosing to set my soul on Advent–because I need peace. And that is my only Christmas wish this year:  for a little peace.

 

It’s not that I haven’t had peace. Our Heavenly Father is faithful, and always standing by to dole out His perfect and all-encompassing peace for our weary hearts. But we have let things get a little hectic in my house.

 

Too much hustle and bustle, too much unintentional “work”. Too much screen time. Too little reading, too little playing, too little cooking for the simple joy of it, too little patience; too little God and too little peace.

 

 

How We Spend Advent Matters for a Lifetime

 

My three-year-old, Ezekiel, surprised me the other day. I sat snuggling him on the couch, and whispered into his ear, asking him if he is excited to go get our Christmas tree. He said yes, of course; he’s been talking about it for weeks. I smiled into his soft, white-blonde curls. “And to decorate it with lights and ornaments?” I asked him. His eyes lit up as a smile crept across his face. “And bubbles!” He exclaimed in full grin.

Many of my childhood Christmas memories center around a plastic bear that sat, every year, on top of our tree, sending bubbles dancing down the branches to our eager hands below.

That same tattered old bear now sits upon my Christmas tree each year, creating the same wonder for my own children to experience.

Last year I remember asking myself just how much Zeke would remember of Christmas. He was only two and a half, but I knew that no matter what he remembered, it would begin to shape his ideas surrounding what Christmas is. This is why I originally set out with big plans. It’s the same reason I am trading those plans this year– for the sake of Advent.

Because a little boy of only three and a half remembered a little bear and bubbles for an entire year, and looked forward to their return. And now I know that how we experience Christmas this year will form his anticipations for years to come.

 

 

Advent–The Coming of Peace

 

Advent means “Coming”, and it embodies the Christian’s anticipation of the arrival of Christ–thousands of years ago as a humble baby in a lowly manger, as well as for His future return to call His people home.

 

Hope.

Waiting.

Anticipation.

Peace.

This is the Advent. And this is what I want to be instilled in my soul–and my family’s soul–over the next 25 days.

 

 

How Advent Wraps Up Our Current Year in Grace, and Fills Our Coming Year With Hope

 

As we come to a close on this year, I look back with a deep regret. With many check marks inked next to my year goals written back in January, there is one check mark missing; one goal not met. And it was my most important one:

 

To rise early every morning and meet with God.

 

I did not even come close.

There were many reasons, or rather excuses; now leaving an empty and aching crater in my spirit, longing for each morning I surrendered to a lesser cause. Sleep. Busyness. Distraction. Selfishness.

 

This nagging regret brought to my mind this week a song by Relient K that I used to listen to in High school:

 

 

Revolutionize Your Christmas and Coming Year ~ One Promise, One Plan, and One Plea

 

The Advent gives us a chance to reflect back on a year, and how that year has shaped our soul, the good as well as the bad.

And then the Advent points us forward–to hope. To a babe in a manger. To salvation. To grace greater than a year’s failures. To peace.

 

It is with this hope that I am approaching this Advent with a Promise, a Plan, and a Plea.

 

The Promise: To be in God’s Word daily, searching for His extravagant peace.

The Plan: To wake each day at 6am {With a cup of coffee…} and read through Ann Voskamp’s “The Greatest Gift” Advent Devotional

The Plea: Father, give me the motivation and strength each day to do this. Through it, create in me an authentic desire to be in Your Word, and develop in me a habit of doing so. Finally, lavish upon me Your extravagant peace.

 

{…And What About You?}

 

I challenge you this Advent to look back. Reflect on your year, see your failures, but do not dwell on them. Look only long enough to trace the fingers of God’s grace throughout them. And then look forward, to hope, to life, to peace–to the Babe in the manger.

Finally, consider that now may be the time for you to make a Promise, a Plan, and a Plea. {And go find a pen to ink them into commitment with!}