Darkness concealed my tears as I sat in the back of my church at a carols service a few days ago. Generations were packed under the tin roof as the narrator read the Christmas story while actors brought words to life. Little children and grandparents sang together as the orchestra filled the room with music, but I only knew a fourth of the "familiar" carols. The children sang their piece sweetly, the pastor spoke meaningful words, and still sadness threatened to overwhelm me. I was sitting near friends who had generously given up a seat for Jordan, MJ, and me to share, but even in the shadow of their kindness, I felt disoriented in the midst of the celebration and alone in the crowd.
For me, Christmas has always been about sweaters and decorating my own home, about cold weather and shopping, about food and family and friends, and of course, though sometimes as an afterthought, about Jesus. This year, I was too sick to decorate my house until the twenty-first, and I couldn't put all my imported decorations out because we move in just a few weeks to the fourth home we will occupy in a twelve month period, another home that is not "mine". I haven't been able to use the car or miraculously found myself in possession of wads of cash, so shopping was out. It is (hot) summer, and if I were to don a sweater, I would likely suffer from heatstroke and then become the punchline to a "Yankee" joke. I am far away from family and old friends, separated by an ocean's worth of distance; and Skype, though it is wonderful, it not sufficient to bridge 10,000 miles. Truly, I have been feeling so un-Christmasy without most of my usual celebration tools.
A couple of days after the carol service, I walked into a mall with Greg and began to feel much better as I was enveloped by commercialism. But, in the midst of my relief, a question arose in my mind. Why did the mall make me feel better? Following the question, the truth, strong and stark, charged into my mind. All the things that "feel" like Christmas to me don't really have anything to do with Christmas. Christmas isn't about all the wonderful traditions that my family has kept or about the weather or familiar carols in familiar church services. Christmas isn't about decorating, or having my own house or about spending money to buy gifts for people. It is about God coming to earth as a baby to bridge distance between fallen humanity and Himself. Christmas is about the Holy and Almighty Creator of heaven and earth spanning the gap between himself and sinful me.
I miss my family and familiar traditions terribly. I feel strange in a foreign country celebrating Christmas at my new church or at the beach or at the home of my kind friends who adopted us on Christmas day; but how I feel doesn't really matter very much because Christmas isn't actually about me. Christmas is all about Jesus, and this year, on the far side of the world, in the midst of my aching and disorientation, I celebrate Jesus' birth. May His truth and His peace reign on earth and in my heart today.
