Chasing Christmas

I have always loved Christmastime.  Everything about it.  The trees and songs and bells and pretty lights and mistletoe.  I even like the hustle-and-bustle of it. 

So last week I was wondering why this year feels different.  Because my happy doesn’t really feel much happier this time around.  And I think I made a breakthrough discovery that will forever change my view of Christmas.  I’m realizing that maybe the Christmas we all work so hard to create is just an illusion.  Like chasing a memory we never really had.  I’m starting to think that for all these years, we’ve just been chasing the Christmas we think we want, never really knowing what that is.  So we chase it through the mall and the Christmas tree lot and the wrapping paper.  We chase it through Christmas party buffet lines and traffic.  We chase Christmas down until the chase becomes the event.  And Christmas becomes an annual frenzy.  And before we know it, the happy is gone and we are none the wiser for it.  So we wrap it all up and call it another crazy Christmas season and put away the decorations for eleven more months when we’ll take it all out and chase it down again.

Then I remembered the first ever Christmas chase.  It looked a lot different.

Three men chasing a star.  They chased it because they wanted to meet a baby king.  The King.  They brought gifts on their chase because they wanted to, not because they were expected.  They went because they wanted to love on the baby.  Because God was making an appearance, and they wanted to see it.  Their advent calendar was not precise.  They couldn’t count down the days, but they knew it was close.  And all they chased was the real live Christmas.  The one where God became baby in a stinky, nasty stable and dirty, poor people were the honored guests.  The one where angels and stars burst with excitement because of the truth of real Christmas — God Himself providing the cure for broken mankind.

That’s the Christmas I want to chase.  I’m done chasing memories and illusions of what I think it should be.  I will chase it no more.  Because the perfect Christmas has nothing to do with pretty bows and fancy clothes.  The perfect Christmas happened about 2000 years ago.  When the perfect God sent His perfect Son in the perfect way to ensure my (and your) perfect eternity.

So when I sit in front of my cozy fire and wrap my presents with their pretty bows, I have decided that I will not stress-out when the cookies burn out or when I notice the tree-top angel disclosing her plastic underparts.  (Yes, that’s parts not pants!).  I will choose to not get upset when that Christmas cd skips.  Again.  Or when the advent wreath candles fall over for the three hundred forty-ninth time.  Because this year I’m chasing the real deal.