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Holidays

All I Want for Christmas

What do you want for Christmas this year?

My "want list" has always been quite simple.

For just one day, I want no financial stress, no time pressure, no physical exhaustion or illness, no loneliness, and no sadness. For just one day, I want to give the perfect gift—beautifully wrapped—to each of my family and friends. For just one day, I want my house decorated like the photographs in House Beautiful. I want to serve a fabulous dinner straight off the pages of Bon Appétit and I want everyone to get along—no tempers, no pouting, no whining, no manipulating, no insensitivity and no arguing. For just one day, I want smiling faces near a glowing fire with snow falling gently outside the window—my own Hallmark moment.

I guess you could say that all I want for Christmas is perfection. Is that too much to expect?

For years I was caught up in what a friend calls "irrational holiday hype." I believed that if I worked hard enough and fast enough, I could capture the perfect holiday. My absurd expectations always left me frustrated, disappointed, and exhausted. By December 26, my spirit was worn and threadbare. I expected far too much from one day of the year.

Christmas perfection exists only in our imaginations, in movies or on the pages of glossy magazines with their skilled marketing departments. Nevertheless, many of us have adopted the faulty perception of this romanticized, glamorized, commercialized Christmas.

Christmas will not be perfect at my house this year. I am guessing it won't be perfect at yours either. Christmas does remain a wonderful season to spend time with those we cherish and to reflect on God's Gift to a broken world, His Son. Perhaps it is our brokenness and imperfections that lead us to the perfect Gift of love found in a humble manger. After all, if we could attain perfection, we wouldn't need a Savior.