A Sick Christmas

This is an old, worn-out story for any of you who've had the misfortune of having to listen to my preaching for too long...

Our oldest child, our daughter, has a lot of my blood running in her as far as Christmas is concerned. Like me, she gets wound up about the holidays to the "nth" degree. One Christmas season in particular, when she was a child, she could barely contain her level of excitement in the days before the 25th. Every school Christmas program, every Christmas carol in the airwaves, every decoration on every house, every church event of the season, every shopping trip, and every sight of a brightly wrapped package sent her into high holiday rpm's. By the time our Christmas Eve candlelight service rolled around, followed by a traditional gathering of friends before the big morning, she could nearly float on her own.

My wife and I warned her, season after season, that she was making herself so excited that she'd make herself sick. On that particular Christmas, at about 2 a.m. on Christmas morning, she in fact did so. She emptied her stomach and then some on repeated trips to the porcelain throne for the rest of the wee hours of the holy day.

So, I sat up with her, trying to calm and sooth her, and trying to help her get back to sleep. Just to reinforce the mood of calmness, I found a radio station playing soft, slow Christmas music through the night. Tough as it was on her, it is now one of my fondest Christmas memories. With the noise, clamor, and pressure of the pre-Christmas season behind us, and with the carefully crafted image of a perfect Christmas shattered, I was free to just sit silently in the presence of the awakening Christmas morning. The soft, soothing setting reminded me of how really simple and clear this all is. God is with us. Something as hopeful yet common as the birth of a non-descript baby seals this truth. That's the nature of our God.

I hope this type of Christmas for all of you. (Not that I hope you have relatives loosing their cookies, mind you!) I hope the simply power of the truth of a Savior's coming is yours.

I'll see you around the next bend in the river. Put some garland and greenery on your canoe. We'll be in mid-Missouri for our newest grandchild's birth this week, so probably there will be no posts until the weekend.