Holidays: delightfully enjoyable or incredibly depressing?
Obviously it depends on your situation around holidays. If you've had a loved one die or something terrible happen around a holiday, that memory will forever change the way you look at said holiday. For example, this year my Nanny died right before Easter. I'll probably remember that forever. But a few years ago my Papaw died a couple days before my birthday. My birthday was the day right after his funeral. I definitely reflected upon that the next year around my birthday, but the following years, honestly I don't know if it crossed my mind. (Though it certainly may affect my Dad much more than me.)
My Mom has done a great job of ingraining in us the fact that holidays aren't about us. Christmas is not about me. Easter, not about me. Even my birthday...not about me. So whatever the circumstance around a special date on a calendar, I've been able to learn that a holiday doesn't have to look or feel a certain way.
I've had to deal with the feeling that we were the 'weird' family around holidays for a long time. We never really celebrated just like everyone else. It's never been as big of a grand production for my family. We don't decorate to the hilt. We don't plan and plan for a month before the big day. We don't pine over Christmas carols or yearn for the day when we can put up our Christmas tree. Several years in a row we shopped for our presents the day before Christmas Eve. We've even had years without a Christmas tree. For a few years in OK, we had a home-made manger. (It was beautifully handcrafted from weathered fence pieces from our backyard. It didn't make the move with us 4 years ago and I still miss it.)
This year's Christmas didn't fall short in it's weirdness quota either. We just celebrated it as a family tonight. Yes, we just celebrated Christmas on New Year's Eve. I don't care to go into the reasons why we did what we did this year in fact, if you'd like, you can read what we have normally done in the past and a few traditions we've developed at my mother's blog here, but we did have a simple, lovely evening with a few presents and delicious fettuccine alfredo.
Every year, I do struggle to have a heart of complete worship around holidays. I think our upbringing has made it easier though. However this year, I found myself thinking through how many more holidays I would have to get through as a "single person". Ugh. I went through a mental check-list of how long I'd have to endure sappy holiday cheer and be grumpy about it. Christmas, check. New Years...almost...and now, check. Oh good! Wait...Valentine's Day! Oooooh no! One whole awful month to be inundated with pink, red, candy and fluffy animals in celebration of that special someone. So three holidays right in a row that remind me that I'm alone. Great.
Today especially I felt that huge wish to have someone to celebrate with. As we drove down Central around campus I noticed every macho man bundled up in coat, scarf and hat, feeling like I was on the outside looking in on the relationships that everyone else seems to be in. I could feel my heart getting heavier and heavier, loaded down with the weight of feeling sorry for myself...And then...
Then my eyes fell upon a man. Not a macho man, attractive in his clean coat and nicely trimmed, fashionably-wintery beard, but a dirty man; a man loaded down with a burden he carries everywhere he goes. His bundle is his bed and clothing. His burden, the weight of survival. Instantly I realized this day, this day deemed a holiday-a day of drunkenness and unnecessary romance and spontaneous kisses in Times Square etc-is not about me. This day is not about my comfort or fulfilling my girlish dreams and nor is any other day. There is hurt in this world. There is pain. And whether it's a holiday or not, it is still a regular, normal day. It is still a day written in God's history. It is still a day where every wrong has not yet been made right and it is still a day that I am waiting for Christ my King.
Oh man am I grateful for perspective. Yes, there is a time for rejoicing, celebration and fun. But if there's anything that holidays in my family have taught me, it is that every day does not play out in the way that we had perfectly planned and that every day is not about me. All 365 days of the year are about Christ and about His purpose for redemption and relationship with His people. All of those days include holidays, and holidays aren't about me.
