At Christmas, few items are more perfectly packaged for failure than the seemingly simple gingerbread house-making kit available at the local superstore. I fall for it every year. It includes all the candy needed, the icing, and the precut gingerbread sides. Look, how cute! This year it consists of a whole village and a train. The box says “easy” and I’m a competent adult. How hard can it be?
The moment comes to create, and the kids and I slide it out of the box, organize the candy in separate little white bowls, arrange the plastic molds for building, and snip the end of the icing package as visions of sugar plums dance in our heads.
Alas! Expectations of constructing the Land-O-Sweets edifice on the box are soon dashed as dense gingerbread walls collapse with sticky icing too much like toothpaste than wall mount. We scramble to catch the chaos, and shriek as peppermints fall from the roof… but finally, we throw up our hands and laugh, looking at our final result that could only be awarded a prize on “Nailed It!”
Around mid-November as these notorious gingerbread kits hit store shelves, I pick up a few boxes with ridiculously renewed faith in my crafting abilities and pick up a few scenarios from the shelves of “holiday season must haves” in my mind. These are the titles I will fulfill, the vision of myself in the role of Christmas matriarch (feel free to roll your eyes):
1. Angelic presence in my family’s center
2. Gracious host to guests
3. Creative teacher - complete with fun holiday games – for my class
4. Devout advent follower of great new bible study
5. Generous gift giver to all
6. Thrifty budget keeper of finances
7. Jolly baker of multiple cookies
8. Attentive mother for every holiday party my kids are invited to attend
9. Interior designer of Christmas wonder
10. Hot wife for husband’s work party
how long is this list anyway?
11. Charming Christmas letter writer
12. “GOAT” mom who adheres to the ‘my college kid is home but I’m not going to be bossy or smother him’ mantra
And above all this particular year - the newest, shiniest package to pull down:
13. Ideal “Christmas at Nana’s” curator (my first year for the role!)
I don’t think all these items could fit in Santa’s pack, much less make it down the chimney in one piece. And yet… THEY MUST! All of them. For everyone.
Each day, I begin with #4, devout advent keeper, and that’s a good start… but pretty soon I’m trying to juggle the rest and quickly failing item #1 by snapping at children after a bewildering look at receipts confirming the breaking of #6. Soon, I yell at our dogs to stop barking so UPS won’t pass our house with packages to maintain #5 and later find myself pouting that I’ve nothing to wear to fit the image I have in mind under item #10.
By mid-December, all my pretty and petty expectations crumble into so many gingerbread crumbs. But I’m not laughing. I’m humiliated. Frustrated.
This isn’t a candy house, it’s my real home feeling like a wreck where I’ve disappointed everyone and can’t keep the walls of a sweet Christmas from collapsing.
What to do here in the mess I’ve made?
First, stuff too many stale candies in my mouth for comfort, but then - look back at the Story all this chaos is swirling around. What I find there is better than the best Black Friday sales… I discover the very first Christmas carol.
It isn’t Jingle Bells and thank the Lord, it doesn’t sound like Mariah Carey. It’s very quiet and the tune is indistinct. The words are familiar, but the meaning now resonates within my discouraged soul. It is found in Luke 2:46 where Mary’s song begins, the original Christmas lyric:
“My soul glorifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.”
He has been mindful. Thoughtful. Knowing. Kind. He is rescuing the discouraged, he is asking much of her but delivering more than enough to see it accomplished.
Mary’s reason to rejoice is not just that God has chosen her to bear Jesus, but that He has SEEN her condition within it. And he sees my condition. And yours. She joyfully expects God’s grace to carry Christ, and I must trust God’s grace to carry Christmas. Stuck in the mud with tires spinning, propping up all the materials to look like the images we’ve bought into being, God knows that we’re sitting amongst the rubble of good intentions, the crumbs of would-be glory. Hopes dashed, fears realized, chaos rather than Kingdom-come.
There is no room in the inn of my imagined perfect holiday house, but he has provided a stable and a manger for my mind to rest in the swaddling clothes of Christ.
“My soul glorifies the Lord,” I begin to sing along, “and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,” I repeat it until my soul truly extols and my spirit smiles to exult realizing… he HAS been mindful of the humble state of this servant.
Last night, after a full day of church and Christmas games, food, and fun, my family cuddled up on the living room couches to watch George Bailey’s hopes for his future be thwarted repeatedly until he realizes… It’s a Wonderful Life. But as the familiar opening music began, I slipped into the next room to calm my three-month-old grandson who had grown tired of the holiday rush around him. I hummed a simple tune to soothe his downy little head resting on my shoulder. I held his tiny fist in my hand and paced the floor of a darkened room lit only by the Christmas lights shining from the window. All was calm, all was bright.
He began to relax and his small frame gradually grew heavy with peaceful slumber in my arms. From now on all generations will call me blessed, I thought. Not because I’ve accomplished #13 on the list, but because like Mary, God has been mindful of my humble state and He has come to save me.
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