I would have never expected this Christmas to be one of my favorite memories. Why? Historically speaking Christmas seems to become bigger and bigger each year. One year, I remember thinking that this was slightly insane the amount of money and debt that was being created. Well, that trend was going upwards for my family as well. That is until this year. Due to financial mistakes on my part,our Christmas budget was significantly lower as was our access to credit. It was perhaps the tightest budget I've ever had since our first year of marriage.
For weeks I wondered how we might make the budget work. I thought about a part time job. I drafted a list and redrafted the list over and over. I spent hours on daydreams and fears. As I told Trish I was worried about people's feelings (my children, my parents, my siblings, and my inlaws). I was worried about "ruining Christmas."
How silly? It was totally silly to think that I could somehow ruin Christmas. Christmas - a celebration of Christ's gift to us can't be ruined by anything we fail to purchase. In fact, Christmas is the celebration of the fact that we could not purchase what was needed in the first place. Christmas is about Christ coming to earth to purchase salvation, forgiveness and love for us because we were unable to purchase (or get) it on our own. My gorgeous and gifted wife reminded me of this Christmas truth and reoriented my perspective.
Armed with the reminder that Christmas is about Christ, we attacked this Christmas with a love and peace like no other. There was a great peace in knowing that I was loved by Christ; that Christmas was about love and Christ's love not Best Buy or Wal-Mart. So,we bought gifts and made gifts. We added hand made touches and we made sure what we purchased was wrapped with love. We ate dinner together on Christmas Eve and played an amazing white elephant gift exchange. We laughed, we sat by the fireplace and we gave thanks for each other. We prayed and did devotionals on the Advent. The girls got into the act and did the same. I stopped worrying about who I might leave out. I focused on the blessing of being included in God's love and on what gifts we could give.
On Christmas day we celebrated Christ's birth. We had breakfast together and we went down to Georgetown. We spent the day with family and we watched Christ open up his storehouse and pour out blessings on our children through their grandparents. My sisters and sisters-in-law also gave them great gifts to add to their spiritual blessings for the day.
It was amazing! Yes, I missed the joy of seeing some of my family members' faces light up when they opened our gift. Yes, I missed the feeling I get from giving as much as I receive. I missed these things, but I didn't miss out on love and joy. In fact, I experienced the most joy I can recall in years. Even though this year's financials will be better - I hope we remember the joy of this year and do it all over again.
No comments:
Post a Comment