I love Christmas!

I adore it!

I love the decorations, the trees, the food and flavors, the cards and letters, the music…

I love everything about it!

Especially the traditions.

As a teen I started sending  out my own Christmas letters, was the only one my age I knew of that would take the time to do it. Last year I think I sent out about 50 cards.

Nearly every year growing up my family would trudge up to the same tree farm to cut down our live Christmas Tree. My brother and I would nearly stage a rebellion if my parents even suggested anything different. And now as an adult I’ve kind of been proud that we kept the tradition, going up to that same farm every year.

I’ve noticed that I’m actually rather controlling over my Christmas. I want everything “just so.” I have to do the lights on the tree, because it has to be “just so.” I have to do this and that at this or that time. The minute Santa hits the TV in the Thanksgiving Day Parade everything has to be just “perfect.” And every year it’s gotten more and more stressful because, well, my husband wasn’t really on board.

Oh it’s not that he doesn’t like Christmas, or even that he wasn’t supportive of my yearly Christmas Crazy, it’s that for the last seven years or so he’s worked in retail. In a big chain store at the mall in fact. To his point of view the decorations were coming out earlier every year, the music was getting even more redundant, and the stress and insane hours were getting worse over time. Every December he was coming home with migraines, indigestion, and heart burn. The most patient man I’ve ever known would become, well, less than patient.

I tried to be understanding, I did… but I just really wanted CHRISTMAS! I’ll confess I probably added to his stress, more than a little, with my nagging.

This year promised early on to be worse than ever for him. You see he not only has work to contend with, but he’s finishing up an Associates of Arts degree in Network Security, and to do that he is working an internship. He has to log a certain amount of hours before January 8th. His very little time free has been reduced to practically none at all. And because he’s so close to the finish line all of a sudden big choices about his future are looming and decisions need to be made. The internship would have been easier at any other time of the year as he has lots of vacation stored up, but December is blocked off from taking paid vacation time. He has to work a full time job and a part time job and school all at once.

Welcome to this years Christmas!

So I made a decision. I decided that this year, no matter how much it bothered me, I was going to let things go. I was going to NOT have to have everything perfect.

For the first time ever, my Christmas tree has come from a lot.

And, not for the first time, but a very rare occurrence, we are not sending out cards.

I’m just not insisting on everything being “just right.”

And you know what? I’m enjoying myself more than I have for an awfully long time!

Instead of having the Christmas I thought I needed, I’m endeavoring to be the wife my husband has needed. I’m finding it very rewarding.

We all can get a little possessive over our lives and how we think they should go. We all can get a little distracted with wanting things “just so.” We want our homes to fit a certain picture, our schedules to meet a certain expectation, our jobs to be at a certain level, our lives to fit a certain “ideal.”

It’s not that those things are bad. My traditions aren’t bad and I really do hope we can go up to cut down a tree again next year. It’s not a tradition I wish to completely discard. But when our traditions and ideals are taking over our lives, well maybe it’s time to reevaluate.

Our culture doesn’t really help us in this issue. It practically preaches the gospel on wanting everything just a certain way by a certain time. If you don’t have your degree by twenty-three there is something wrong with you. You should have that successful career by the time you are thirty. Your white picket fence should be in place around that time as well. You have to have everything before you even think about getting married and having kids because that picture has to be perfect and that is the only way you’ll be happy. You need all the stuff, the trappings. If you don’t have it, and you don’t have it when you are young, you are a failure.

I freely admit that there are times I’ve looked at myself by the standards of the world and seen failure written all over me.

But is that really the way things should be? Is that really how we should judge success or failure in our lives?

God doesn’t judge our worth based on our age, looks, and possessions. And honestly the people who really matter in your life don’t either.

I may never be good at keeping my house clean or having it perfectly decorated. I don’t have a career or a degree. And sure maybe someday I’ll be able to get some of those “key accomplishments” squared away. But when I look back on my life the “trappings” aren’t really what matters.

Was I a good Mother?

Was I a good Wife?

Was I a good Friend?

Because people matter more than accomplishments, and happiness doesn’t need a picket fence, it needs loving arms.

So this year I’m letting go of Christmas. I’m letting the Christmas experiences fall where they may and look however they want to be. I’m focusing on giving my husband the wife he needs right now. Because that’s what really matters.

After all, the most perfect Christmas had no tree. It took place in a stable and it’s only decoration was a star. And the most wonderful Christmas gift of all didn’t come from a store, it was a person. A little Babe born to bring salvation.

So this year, be the gift to your family. Let go of Christmas, hold on to Christ.

Merry Christmas!

~Joy Aletheia Stevens

Photo Credit: Christmas Ornaments 4 by Randy Robertson (CC BY 2.0)