Once upon a time...
I had a best friend that I shared Christmas traditions with...
One of those Christmas traditions was waiting for a particular Christmas letter from a particular family that we were particularly "catty" about. I am not saying it was particularly Christian like, and we did become quite convicted several years ago and vow not to share the Christmas letter, discuss it line by line and laugh so hard we were in danger of peeing our pants.
But come on, you know you, you've all done it!
I always joked with my former pal that I was going to write a real Christmas letter one year and just send it out to everyone. Shock the pants off them! Just be totally real.
Things like:
"My 4 year old got kicked out of her 2nd pre-school for cussing out the principal."
"We were unable put up the Christmas tree early this year because my checking account was negative again."
"In the photo, we look happy and my children look beautiful, they are dressed perfectly, all with matching bows and coordinating outfits, but we almost didn't have the picture made. My husband didn't want to take a family picture because he refused to get out of bed. Appointment times are not relevant to him and he knew it meant everything to me and if it means so much, well, every reason not to do it. It took me begging, crying and fighting before he would get out of bed and we were late, of course. It's a beautiful family portrait, though."
"In 10 short years, I've gone from infertility to 'Fertile Myrtle'. I took a pregnancy in Target and found out indeed it was pink. My marriage, kids and life are in such turmoil, though, I was afraid to tell my parents for months and my best friend refused to talk to me for 2 days because she was so upset."
"Our summer vacation was fun this year. We had the lice shampoo shipped to the hotel. I got to see my friend for the first time in a year while she picked lice eggs out of my hair and the kids played nearby. If it wasn't for the Florida sunshine, the internet homeopathic lice special, and the Gulf of Mexico, we might be driving back home with itchy heads!"
"Bible Study was fun this year, too. I was a bit embarrassed when my small group leader who runs the nursery came and asked me to get my children. No-one was sick or hurt, thank goodness, it was just a small louse she had captured in a zip lock bag to show me that my 3 year old had lice. It was good talking to the preacher's wife, although I really would have rathered it not be about having to treat the nursery for lice infestation."
All these stories are actual real life events that have occurred randomly through out the years. Some are funny and do make you laugh out loud. Others speak of the pain and suffering that life on planet earth unfortunately brings.
I'm not saying Christmas letters aren't good and that I don't enjoy getting them. I do! It's just that we seem to so busy impressing all our family and friends and even ourselves we end up "decorating" all the months of the year, not just December.
We decorate our marriage with lights and tinsel because the real thing is dark and needs a little something to spice it up. Have we tried using Jesus, the Light of the World to shed His light on the very union He created? Maybe if we followed His illuminations, we wouldn't need tinsel.
We wrap our children's sporting and academic accomplishments in pretty paper and fancy bows. We want our family and friends to see how all the patterns on the paper line up, the tape doesn't show and the bows are worthy of being store bought not homemade. This matching tissue paper, coordinated wrapping paper, bright and beautiful bows with ornamental tags reflect our own insecurities and fulfilling life long dreams and self worth through the precious ones God gave to us as a gift.
Gluttony becomes an annual tradition carried throughout the year. We start the holidays with dressing our children up and sending them door to door to collect candy no-one really needs and they will only end up getting in trouble for eating too much of it. We stuff ourselves at Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas breakfasts, and all the parties and parades between the two. We charge our cards to buy electronic devices to give our kids more things they already don't need. We overbook our time and pack more into the season than one person could possibly manage. We vow to cut back, spend and eat less with every New Year resolution that is quickly discarded and justified before Valentine's Day. That way we can spend five times the value of a flower and over indulge on candy we don't need.
I am not trying to imitate a popular green character in a Dr. Seuss book, nor the mean guy in Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." The Grinch did not steal Christmas, Satan has, and we have let him. We have let him steal so much of our calendar year. Christmas, New Year's, Easter, September 4th, May 10th and February 1st. Dates of significance about a timed honored tradition or dates of seemingly no importance except to get up, go to school and work, make dinner, read a book and go to bed.
He steals are 365 days of the year with overindulgence seen in the media, watching others have success and thinking we must compete, experiencing a culture with instant messaging, instant gratification and instant potatoes. Have you ever stopped to think there might have been some value to growing potatoes in the garden, peeling potatoes and preparing them for the family dinner? Homemade mashed potatoes; it's a lost art today. Why go home and fix something so time consuming. We can just drive through McDonalds and order a Happy Meal and we get french fried potatoes within about 2 and a half minutes.
When we sit down to create the family Christmas letter this year I wonder if we were really honest we might write something different.
What if we wrote about being a stay at home mom with several little ones at home and how we miss adult conversation and we have made 1000 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches this year and at least, changed that many diapers and you are exhausted. That you feel an extra 10 pounds from each baby is taking its toll, and how you are worried that your little angel doesn't act like such and angel and you wonder if any other mom out there is having trouble with managing their little ones?
What if we wrote that we are having trouble with our school aged children talking back, our teenager skipping school and you think you found a beer cap in his car? Just the other night, you overheard your middle schooler say there were drugs at school and you are not sure who to assign the inappropriate website found on the computer's history to, your teen or husband.
What if we quit being fake and got real, and I'm not talking about the kind of Christmas tree you pick. What if we use this instant technology to hold each other accountable? What if we used the family computer to stay in touch with family and friends and bring unity as opposed to letting your child sequester in their room and discover the dark and private dot com underworld? What if we used our social networks to promote peace and harmony as opposed to mean, cutting comments or a "one up" mentality. Post a prayer request instead of a friend request...no one has that many "friends" anyway!
Let's not "throw out the baby with the bath water", but maybe put the BABY back in our lives, and in our Christmas letters.
