December

I have split personalities when it comes to this month.

First we have the warm-fuzzies-I-love-everything-about-Christmas-it's-so-cozy Tara.

Then we have the oh-my-goodness-just-make-it-all-go-away-I-hate-Christmas Tara.

Can you relate?   Or am I totally on my own?  Maybe I should explain some more.

I love making my home warm and inviting and festive feeling.

I love the Christmas specials on TV.  And Christmas movies.  And BOOKS.

Can we talk about The Best Christmas Pageant Ever for just a minute?  Sometimes thru out the year I tell my kids to stop acting like the Herdmans.  Then, at Christmas time, when I read it aloud to them I am instantly thankful that they aren't nearly as bad as the Herdmans.  Here are the first two sentences of the book incase you are not familiar with it:  "The Herdmans were absolutely the worst kids in the history of the world.  They lied and stole and smoked cigars (even the girls) and talked dirty and hit little kids and cussed their teachers and took the name of the Lord in vain and set fire to Fred Shoemaker's old broken-down toolhouse."

Whew.

I also love Christmas food.  Did you see that one coming?!

Ok, so almost all my food pictures are of desserts.  I'm sure I eat "real" food at Christmas time too.  Maybe.

And then there are my Christmas memories.  

I remember being in Grandma and Grandpa Leaman's cozy basement on Christmas day.  All our stockings, knitted by Grandma, hanging on their mantle.  I remember watching my Grandpa use a bellows with his coal stove, making sure we all stayed warm.  I can feel the warmth of the sun beating in thru the sliding glass doors to where we were all squished around the table.  I hear laughter as aunts visited and uncles played cards.

I remember gathering at Grandma and Grandpa Youndt's farm house every Christmas Eve.  Everyone carting in food and gifts and kids.  Cousins playing in the front room while aunts tried to make all the food fit on the table and uncles sat around telling stories.  Grandpa sitting on the couch with twinkling eyes, taking it all in.  Grandma laughing in the kitchen.  Noise and chaos and love.

Ahem, excuse me, my eyes are a little misty...

And now I'm the mom.  My parents and Larry's parents are the Grandmas and Grandpas.  And there is pressure.  Pressure to make everything perfect and memorable.  To buy the latest and greatest toys so the kids aren't disappointed.  The weeks are full of "shoulds".

I should be buying gifts.

I should be wrapping gifts.

I should be baking cookies.

I should be making some new and amazing dessert.

I should be making memorable meals.

I should be putting up more decorations.

I should be cleaning more.

I should be volunteering at school, at church, at a shelter.

I should be full of Christmas cheer ALWAYS.

It's enough to make me want to crawl under a pile of blankets and only emerge sometime in January.

But I can't do that.  And so sometimes I let myself become cynical about Christmas.  I hate all the commercialism.  I hate the pressure to always be "on".  I hate how I  feel bogged down with the "shoulds".  I hate how I feel inadequate when I hear what other families are doing this time of the year and it seems so much better than what we've got going on.

Here's the raw gut level truth:  I am not enough.

I can't do enough, say enough, be enough.

Here's the amazing grace filled truth:  Jesus is enough.

The times when I feel like I hate Christmas?  It's because I've got my eyes on the tinsel and the holly and not on the manger.  I lose my focus when I lose my wonder.

A quote was read at church on Sunday that went like this:  "Wonder is the basis of worship."

I can't stop thinking about it.

When I get cynical, my heart gets hard.  My words are unkind.  My thoughts are even worse.  No part of me is drawn by wonder.  No part of me is interested in worship.

Ah, but when my heart is soft?  When my eyes and ears are open to the wonder?  Worship flows.  I thank Jesus for the colors in the sunrise, the warmth of a hug, the pile of dirty dishes cuz it means my family is well fed.

I want to be drawn by wonder this Christmas.  I don't want to take my eyes off the manger.  I want to love and create and do and be out of the wonder I feel because of the birth of the tiny King.

What fills you with wonder?