Give Me Back My Christmas, Mr. Grinch!
I remember Christmas as a child. It was my favorite time of year. I also remember the first Christmas that I realized the wonder of it was gone. I don’t remember exactly how old I was, but I remember that I sat on the edge of my bed with tears in my eyes at the realization. I had a funny little tradition. I would save a few pine needles from the Christmas tree in a zip lock bag and hide it in my bedroom closet. In reflection on that I believe I was trying in my 11- or 12-year-old mind to somehow keep that childhood wonder of Christmas from slipping away.
Zing Pop and Candy!
I have many happy memories of Christmas as a child. Too many to list in this post. There is one thing they all have in common. They are all in the context of being with family and friends. In the early years of my childhood our family had a tradition of spending December 26th at my grandmother’s house where all my mother’s siblings and their families would gather for the day. It was always a splendid day for me. There was always plenty of food. Unlimited candy.
And Zing soda pop. Grandma would always have a stack of cases in the basement. Each case was 24 ten ounce cans, and she always had all the flavors. I remember that stack of cases being nearly as tall as I was. My cousins and I would be on a sugar high well into the evening! It wasn’t until I became a parent that I began to realize what that must have been like for my parents.
The Grinch Sneaks In
As I grew older things changed. Life happened. Christmas still came around every year. I still spent much of it with family, but the wonder was fading. At first I didn’t even notice it, until that day when I sat weeping on the edge of my bed realizing something had changed. That was when I began to search for how to get it back. To be fair, the search was rather sporadic. Life as a teenager and then as a young adult, high school, college, the first real job. These things often simply crowded everything else out. Every Christmas however, there was that longing. That “give me back my Christmas Mr. Grinch!” feeling.
What Happened to Christmas?
When my children were born and we became a family, it changed everything again. Now Christmas became all about making it special for them. This was not a bad thing. I have many wonderfully happy memories of this season of my life as well. It created a new dilemma for me however. The busyness of the season, the many demands on my time, I lost myself in the busyness. My occupation at that time required me to plan and execute special Christmas events and programs in the community.
This consumed so much of my time from September through December. Christmas became exhausting to me rather than refreshing. I found myself looking forward to it being over rather than anticipating the arrival of Christmas. Then when it was over, it would feel like I missed it. The Grinch had snuck in and snuck out with my Christmas, and I didn’t see him come or go. I was too busy.
The Return of Christmas
I believe the key to the wonder of Christmas returning in my case, was a return to the reason for the season. Christmas would not exist if Christ had not been born, lived with us on the earth for 33 years, been crucified, and rose from the dead 3 days later. Without those events taking place the world would be a much darker, drastically different place today.
So many of the traditions of Christmas point to that event. The lights: Jesus is the light of the world! The nativity scenes: remembering his birth. The manger: his humble nearly unnoticed entry into the world. Perhaps most of all is the gathering of family and friends. Christmas is a time to be together! To be “in community”. Why? Because the whole point of Jesus’ entry into this world was to restore the relationship between God and humanity! To bring us back into communion with God!
It is in Giving that we Receive
I currently have three favorite traditions that bring the wonder of Christmas back to me now in my senior years. The first is being together with my children and grandchildren. Not for gifts or candy, though we still enjoy both, but just to “be present” with them. I also look forward each year to be with my church family on Christmas Eve. And the third is to go caroling at a senior home, or hospital, or in the neighborhood, to bring some light and joy and music to people who are unable to get out to find it.
So, sorry Mr. Grinch, you can’t have the wonder of my Christmas anymore. It has always belonged to the King of Kings who was born in a manger over two thousand years ago. By His grace and mercy, He shares it with me all year round…but we make a big deal of it every December.
Epilogue
I would invite you to share a favorite Christmas memory, or how you beat the Grinch and reclaimed the wonder of Christmas in the comments.