The Imperfect Christmas

It’s December 24th, Christmas Eve, and I don’t even know how we got to this day. While this is normally one of my favorite times of the year, my best season, this year has been different. This is my second Christmas without my son, and that just makes the holidays harder. On top of that this December has been one of surviving. We had a new family member join us, and we were hit with the flu for 3 out of 4 of us, pink eye for all 4, 4 ear infections, 2 sinus infections, and colds for all of us. All in less than 3 weeks. It’s like the 12 days of Christmas but with sickness. So while we have been fighting the sickness and adjusting to life as a bigger family, some things have had to be let go. This year, that is all of the stuff of Christmas.

My traditions, my habits, the way I do things — all are gone this year. Instead of decorating for Christmas right after Thanksgiving, we were treating sickness. Instead of counting down the days until Christmas the first week, I was in bed unable to even hold a pen to address my Christmas cards. I emerged from bed on December 8th, realizing I was already behind the ball, and I only got further behind. December 15th rolled around, and I hadn’t bought a single present yet. I declined every party invitation, every cookie exchange, every shower  I haven’t baked a single cookie. I haven’t made fudge or snowflake bark. We didn’t go buy a Christmas tree this year. I finally got our decorations up in a bit of an “as-is” state by mid-December. Not one single present has been wrapped, and I still don’t think I have one for everybody.  

All of these things bother me so much. The idea of failing at Christmas makes my skin crawl. The idea that a time I love so much has just been survived, is really hard to swallow. It’s a huge hit to my pride to say that I just can’t do it this year. I can’t be a mama to a new child, adjust to our growing family, trim the tree, bake the goodies, send the cards, buy the gifts, and do our every day. I am having to accept that this year is an imperfect Christmas. 

The crazy thing about all of this is that through this imperfect Christmas I am learning what Christmas truly means. It’s not in a beautiful way of seeing love and helping others, but it is in a tangible way that is meeting me right where I am. Christmas isn’t about me and my ways. It isn’t about getting everything right and making it beautiful and letting people see how good I am at doing Christmas. In fact, that’s quite wrong. So while this Christmas season has been a hard one to swallow, it has taught me some valuable lessons. This Christmas Eve I am exhausted. I am spent, run dry, and just tired. Rather than arriving at Christmas full already, I come empty and in need of being filled. And I think that is how we are supposed to come to Christmas. Not full of our doing, but empty and open to the love all around us. Open to our family, friends, neighbors, and strangers. Tired enough to not bake all the things and instead just sit with our kids and play a game together. Too spent to wrap the presents in the prettiest of paper, so just throwing things in bags and letting it be good enough.

I am learning the hard way, that the less I bring to the table, the more open I am to see where those around me are. This year I am learning to embrace our imperfect Christmas and to be okay with it. Maybe your Christmas is not what you hoped it would be or what it usually is. Maybe yours is different and lonely and hard and exhausting. If your Christmas is imperfect, I hope you will see that it is beautiful anyway, and maybe out of the desperation it will be the most beautiful Christmas yet.