Have Yourself a Crappy Little Christmas

" Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
Let your heart be light
From now on,
our troubles will be out of sight
Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
Make the Yuletide gay,
From now on,
our troubles will be miles away.
Here we are as in olden days,
Happy golden days of yore.
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more.
Through the years
We all will be together,
If the Fates allow
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.
And have yourself a merry little Christmas now."

Well, it has begun again. Our annual madcap quest for the perfect Christmas. Everyone is rushing about like crazy beings. Traffic snarls to a crawl. Lines in the stores try patience which is thin at the best of times. We buy and bake and decorate and cook with impunity. We've got to have the perfect tree, just to take it down again. We have to provide cakes and cookies to friends and neighbours near and far, who neither need them or want them. Be honest, how much Christmas baking ends up in the trash can? We gorge ourselves on excess food, and then guilt ourselves when it's all over and we step on the scale. Do we really enjoy all that extra food, or is every mouthful swallowed with a spoonful of guilt, like the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down? We attend this party and that, this concert and that, this service and that, because it just wouldn't be Christmas without. We spend money we don't have (think trillions of dollars of personal debt we Canadians are carrying collectively) to buy gifts people don't need. Whee, what fun (in sarcastic font).

Every year, when it's all done, and we collapse, exhausted, fat, bloated, and broke, we promise ourselves that next year, it'll be different. But it's not. And if it is, if we actually dare to step out of the craziness, we become something of an oddity. Like the Utah mom who "cancelled Christmas". She's all over the news. Some are applauding. Some are criticizing. But everyone is noticing. Because, let's face it, for most of us, it's never really different. Despite our pledge to join the "Advent Conspiracy", we end up sucked into the vortex.

For those upon whom different is forced, there is enormous grief. Or guilt. For the family that truly can't afford gifts for their kids, Christmas is hard. For the family who has lost a loved one this past year, and is facing a Christmas without, Christmas is hard. For the single or the widow or widower or divorced who may face a Christmas alone, Christmas is hard. For those who have to work on Christmas Day, Christmas is hard. For those for whom family dynamics are complicated and messy, Christmas is hard. Which means that Christmas is hard for probably 95% of the population. It's hard for most of us, but we pretend it's wonderful.

Why? Why is it that every year, we are struck by the madness that is December? Why is it that every year, we get caught up in the quest to create the perfect Christmas? Perfect gifts, perfect decorations, perfect family, perfect food, perfect services, perfect loveliness, and it had better snow just perfectly on December 24. Perfection is such a demanding taskmaster. It sucks every joy out of life. It fills me with discontent, with anger, with striving and grasping and trying to control things over which I have no control. The search for perfection is so pointless. In this broken world, it just doesn't exist.

That's why we celebrate Christmas.

Because in this broken world, perfection doesn't exist. People get sick and die. Relationships are shattered by anger and misunderstanding and unforgiveness. Families are torn apart by addictions, abuse, selfishness, and apathy. Weird Aunt Mildred is just weird. Uncle Louis is nasty. Joe over here drinks too much and Sally is a gossip. And me? I am impatient, cynical, prone to brood, prone to pessimism I try to disguise as realism, quick to worry, quick to fear. My faith is shaky at best sometimes, and my life is frayed around all the edges.

That's when Jesus shows up -- right in the midst of my brokenness. He comes in the middle of the night, to a vagrant carpenter and his sort-of wife. He arrives in a barn, in the middle of blood and afterbirth, sheep crap and dirt. He comes into the most imperfect Christmas ever. No decorations except dung and dirt. No food except animal food. No gifts. Not on the night he was born. He had to wait two years for those. And the guests to his Christmas party would make Weird Aunt Mildred and Uncle Louis seem normal.

He comes because our world -- my world -- is not perfect. He is quite comfortable with mess. He doesn't mind brokenness. He loves Weird Aunt Mildred and Uncle Louis. He even loves me.

So I'm not going to try to create a perfect Christmas. I'm not even going to feel sad or guilty for my less-than-Christmas-card Christmas. Instead, I'm going welcome Jesus into my crappy little Christmas. I'm going to welcome him into my broken relationships, into my first-Christmas-without,  into my Christmas that follows a year of disappointments and hurt. I'm going to welcome him into my messy, mixed-up, anything-but-perfect life. I think he'll feel quite at home.

And right in the middle of my crappy little Christmas, as I look around at the hurt and heartache, I will marvel at the thought that he came. The wonder of his coming shines all the brighter against the backdrop of my mess. Oh, the baby, born in a barn, for me! For this very mess that I am in right now. It's not perfect, and that makes it perfect. Because he came for the imperfect. He came for me.

I am beginning to love my crappy little Christmas, even when my heart isn't light, when there are no golden days of yore, when my faithful friends who are dear remain in their graves rather than at my side at Christmas, and my troubles are pressing in. I know this: I am thankful beyond words that he came in a mess, for the messed-up people of this world. I am so grateful that there is no part of my crappy Christmas that surprises him or is beyond his ability to redeem. That's why he came. I am blown away, simply blown away that he would want to celebrate Christmas with me. It moves me to tears. Happy tears. I can't offer him fine presents or figgy pudding, perfect decorations or perfect anything at all. And he doesn't even care. The wonder of that is breathtaking. It makes my Christmas fairly perfect, in all the right ways.

"What can I give him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb;
If I were a wise man
I would do my part;
But what can I give him?
Give my heart."