You know you are in for a novel experience at Christmas time when you can’t even fully explain your family’s holiday- Plans A and Plans B- to your sister over the phone. I was smack-dab in the middle of my futuristic narrative last week when I was abruptly cut off. She claims her phone died. I think she felt lost in the hopeless boredom of watching a mouse in a maze as I spouted the if-then-but scenarios.
This must have been what Mary felt like (along with a greater degree of physical discomfort) as she bopped and bounced on that donkey on the way to Bethlehem. She must have felt estranged and empty at times of anything but blind faith in a vision which made her sound crazy when she tried to recount it.
I can’t honestly tell you what Christmas is going to be like in my house on December 25, or how a family that usually shares bites of food and hugs when we move from one room to another will handle wearing masks and socially distancing from one another. I am not at all confident we will manage not to pass our Christmas baby around, although we are fully committed to all of these safety protocols going in.
I don’t honestly know how many of us will show up for Christmas. Coronavirus is on the rampage in our state as it seems to be everywhere right now. Every day I learn of a new friend in our small town that is suffering from this virus. I am fearful of becoming ill, but I am also filled with concern about the longterm affects of coping with this pandemic and the measures we have all, in good faith, been forced to participate in. I pray that our four grown children and our four little grandchildren will be able to hold to memories of the zany indoor snowball fights and spread of touchable food on my kitchen island and game boards and puzzles spread across card tables throughout my house.
It’s been a dreadful year this 2020. And now, we have all these RULES for Christmas. What I find most helpful amidst all the unknown is that I must now forage for simple blessings, that to be honest, I gave up noticing many years ago.
I find myself in Christmas quarantine ten days before the event that I have no control over, finding comfort in small things: sharing a lunch with my husband, text messages from my Bubble wishing me a happy isolation, the hanging of pictures on the walls of my home, where I relish the new faces of the babies I hope to hold.
The first Christmas was fragile like this I think–a garment with an un-hemmed potential for hope and faith. I am rediscovering those words and their meanings in Scripture this December. We all have the chance to choose thankfulness for whatever happens this season. To be “loved with an everlasting love.” To have been “drawn” with an “unfailing kindness.” (Jer. 31: 3).
Christmas 2020 is already complicated. I am choosing to keep my mindset simple. Read it and Believe it, my friends. Merry Christmas.
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