I had coffee with a friend the morning after Christmas. “It just didn’t feel like Christmas this year,” she said. Many of her family members had been sick, and she was exhausted from working her new job and trying to take care of everyone. On my drive home, I started thinking, “What does Christmas feel like?” I began to make a mental list of what Christmas felt like to me. Here were some of the things on my list: Christmas lights, time with family, making cookies and candies, wrapping presents, and the candlelight service at church. Then I realized that those things aren’t feelings, they’re memories or experiences that I associate with Christmas. Feelings are emotions like happiness, sadness, fear, or joy. So then, I asked myself a different question. What does Christmas NOT feel like?
Christmas does NOT feel sad, lonely, dark, sick, anxious, or desperate. It does not feel like a normal routine, every other day of the year. We expect that Christmas will feel different. We want it to feel special. We expect to have a merry heart and lightness of spirit that we don’t feel on other days of the year. And so we decorate our homes and play our favorite Christmas songs. We do things that are not everyday things with the expectation that then it will “feel like Christmas.” What if those things are just “dressing up” life? Those things don’t stop our regular life from happening. People will still get sick, our kids will still quarrel, our jobs will still be stressful, and the bills will still arrive in the mailbox regardless of the date on the calendar.
I think perhaps what people mean when they say “It doesn’t feel like Christmas” is that they’re not experiencing Christmas in the way they normally do, or in the way they desire to. Spending Christmas Eve on the bathroom floor next to the toilet because you have the stomach bug is not something you’re going to see in the next Hallmark Christmas movie.
Speaking of movies, one movie you will most likely see at Christmas is some version of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” Maybe you remember what is said of old Ebeneezer Scrooge at the end of that movie? It says, “He knew how to keep Christmas well.” I rather like that way of saying it. Scrooge went from being a grumpy, stingy, profit oriented business man to promising the Ghost of Christmas Future, “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.” For Scrooge, that meant being charitable and doing good for others.
I would suggest that as Christians, how we “keep Christmas” has a lot to do with what Christmas means. What does Christmas mean to us as believers? It means the good news of great joy is here; Emmanuel has come to live with us. God sent His Son just as the prophets foretold. We are no longer walking in darkness; the Light has come. Keeping those truths in our hearts, pondering them like Mary, is how we keep Christmas and how we feel Christmas. Those truths, unlike the circumstances in our life, will never change. So I can be sick on Christmas morning, unable to celebrate with my family as usual, but I can look at my Christmas tree and remember that Jesus gave His life for me on another tree so that I might be free from the curse of sin. I can sit with a dying loved one on Christmas Eve and look at the shimmering Christmas lights, remembering that Jesus came as the Light of the World, to conquer sin, darkness, and death.
We can keep Christmas well if we center our holiday on Christ. Some years the season might not go the way we’d like, and thus won’t “feel like Christmas.” And that’s okay! It can feel like Christmas in our heart if we focus not on our circumstances but on the good news proclaimed by the angels, “Unto You is born this day, in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”
I struggled with whether or not I should post this. I know of several families who are dealing with loss this holiday season. In no way do I want this post to come off as trite or as diminishing the overwhelming pain and grief that seems to be made worse (if that’s even possible) when you lose someone you love at Christmas. Christmas enters our lives each year with no regard for whatever difficulties we might be facing. But that’s the point, isn’t it? Christmas enters. Christ enters. The very Son of God left the glories of heaven to cover Himself with flesh and be placed in a feeding trough. He left the perfections of heaven to wear our sin, our shame, and our guilt on the cross. He entered our world and experienced loss, humiliation, anger, and grief; thus He can meet us in the midst of ours with full understanding and compassion. Learning to run to Him when our Christmas isn’t merry and bright is how we keep Christmas and how we feel Christmas. Christ entered our world on Christmas; we must allow Him to enter our messy lives every day of the year.
How silently, how silently,
the wondrous gift is giv’n!
So God imparts to human hearts
the blessings of His heav’n.
No ear may hear His coming,
but in this world of sin,
where meek souls will receive Him still,
the dear Christ enters in.
from “O Little Town of Bethlehem”