Thoughts on the true meaning of Christmas:
I picked my husband up from the train tonight and took him to the mall so that we could join the last minute Christmas shoppers. I’ll admit that we were there purely for the scenery…thanks to the Internet and our tight budget, our holiday shopping has been done for weeks now. Still, the little consumer whore in me just couldn’t let the Christmas season pass by without taking in all of the displays shimmering in the windows of the GAP.
On the way home, Kyle asked if I had blogged today and I admitted that I hadn’t gotten around to it because I wasn’t feeling very inspired to talk about anything in particular. He responded, “You should blog about the true meaning of Christmas.”
When my friends in law school used to tell particularly boring or pointless stories, they used to follow them up with either “and then I found five dollars”, “and then I kicked him in the balls”, or “and that’s when I learned the true meaning of Christmas.” We found that any of those phrases instantly livened up a story and saved your time from having been wasted. However, in all of the times that we had to use those phrases (and we did have to use them often *cough* Nate *cough*), I suppose I never had truly pondered the meaning of Christmas. Or, for that matter, found five dollars and kicked someone in the balls.
As we pulled into the drive-thru of the Riverton Taco Bell, I told Kyle that I didn’t know what the true meaning of Christmas and asked if he did. To my surprise, he answered without hesitation, “Of course. It’s to think of others before you think of yourself.” I was so caught off guard by the complete certainty in his voice that I started to stammer, “Oh…right…well, obviously…” until I realized that I didn’t think that was true. If anything, that seems to be the opposite of true. After all, Christmas has definitely turned into an indulgent holiday, where people eat cookies, make gift lists, drink way too much at office parties, and put up those hideous inflatable lawn ornaments without any thought at all for their neighbors.
Our Christmas morality argument was nipped in the bud by the ordering of some truly American Mexican goodness and the really bad song that happened to come on the radio as we pulled out of the parking lot. Kyle’s asleep now and I’m up with the computer, Googling “true meaning of Christmas”. You can do this if you want, but I’ll save you time and tell you that the top thirty hits are basically different versions of bible passages that give thanks to God for the birth of his son. So, there’s that whole thing, obviously.
A lot of them also mention doing good to the poor and less fortunate. This is a lot more tangible of a direction that the vague “give thanks”. After all, you could argue that giving thanks means denying yourself the commercial trimmings of the holiday to focus on the religious significance or you could argue that giving thanks means embracing all of the joy that life has to offer, much of which is on sale this week at Target. For this reason, it’s sort of easier to skip the whole “give thanks” thing and move on to the doing of the good for the poor people.
When I was a senior in high school, I was in the presidency of the Future Business Leaders of America. Not being interested in being a business leader (shocker!), I only joined the club because Kate was in it and I wanted to be a joiner. I took the position of community interests V.P., which is the least coveted of all FBLA positions as it has nothing to do with power or reward and everything to do with work and crappiness. I was excited to take it, however, because my big job was to put on a holiday party for foster children and parties are totally my thing.
In the weeks that led up to the Christmas party, I was totally filled with the spirit of giving and goodness. By this, I mean that I was totally wrapped up in how much fun it would be to decorate with my friends and how this was going to be an awesome addition to my college application. I made stockings and paper chains and got free pizzas and collected toy donations and pretty much had a blast. Oh, and it was nice that it was all going to the children, but I admit that in my 16 year old brain the children were sort of taking a backseat to the social gathering and the thrill of event coordination.
On the day of the party, I lugged boxes of popcorn balls and plastic trees to the seminary building across from the school and spent all morning barking orders at my helpful friends. The children arrived in a big chattering crowd, but I barely noticed after my high school crush showed up unexpectedly, dragged into volunteering by one of his friends. The rest of the morning was spent in something of a daze as I tried to look busy and important while checking and rechecking my hair in the reflection of a thousand Christmas ornaments. Before I knew it, Santa had arrived and the games were over and all that was left was the reading of The Night Before Christmas and the handing out of the toys.
At this moment, a friend of mine, who was hell-bent on getting me to do more than just dictate and organize, handed me a very small boy. I’d say he was two…definitely not more than three. She literally dumped him into my arms and said, “Here. It’s your turn to help out.” I tried to give him back, but she was already using both of her hands to corral two other small children and so was everyone else I had roped into this mess. As the volunteers tried to calm the kids down enough to listen to the story, I toted the toddler into the kitchen so I could check my cell phone and get the purchase order ready for our Santa Clause. (You’d think someone would have been willing to volunteer their time. Just scandalous.)
There was nobody else in the kitchen to hand the kid off to, so I put him on the counter and then got busy with my little tasks. Once I was finished, I looked up to see that he was still sitting there in silence, watching me. I wasn’t around kids a whole lot at the time, but I was around them enough to know that they’re usually squirmier than that at two. I pulled a candy cane out of one of our leftover stockings and unwrapped it, but I couldn’t get the kid to give me a smile or even take a little lick. I tried a cup of water, a jingling of a sleigh bell, and a poorly sung rendition of deck the halls, but the kid wouldn’t give me any reaction whatsoever.
More than a little creeped out and nervous that I had somehow damaged the kid irreparably in the last five minutes, I dug into our box of donated toys and found a white bear with a red bow. I produced the bear, wiggling its paws and saying (in my best bear voice), “I was lonely in that box. Can I come home with you for Christmas?” Luckily, this last attempt worked and the kid smiled at the bear. I made the bear dance around and sing and I actually evoked laughter. When I made the bear act like it was attacking me, I thought the kid was going to laugh himself off of the counter.
And then I went to say, “I can’t wait to come home for Christmas and meet your mommy and daddy” but I only got as far as “I can’t wait to come home…” before I realized that I didn’t know if this kid had a mommy and daddy. In fact, I didn’t know much about any of the kids, except for the fact that I got their contact info from the Utah Foster Care Association. The boy didn’t notice me trailing off and was content to take the bear from me and wrap him up in a hug, at which point I picked them both up squeezed a bit too much.
We went in and listened to the story. Not surprisingly, the kid didn’t squirm or make a noise. He just hung onto that bear and smiled while poking him in his glass eye. I caught myself kissing the top of the kid’s head and then feeling acutely embarrassed that I had done so in front of everyone. After the story, all of the children were collected, including the little boy I was holding who went home with two very nice looking people and a group of kids that looked a lot like him. The volunteers were just buzzing with the thrill of having finished the party and helped out, but I just felt really, really heavy. And I don’t know why.
What was that…ten years ago this year? I still don’t really understand why it bummed me out so much. It could have been that I wanted to do more, but it’s not like I turned around and started mentoring children the next day. It could have been exhaustion from the event, but I’ve planned bigger things than that and felt nothing but elation at the end.
If anything, I think that those two hours were a shrunken version of my whole Christmas experience. Christmas for me is a time for slow excitement and anticipation which melts into a rush of big ideas and fun surprises and a huge list of things that have to get done. Then the day comes and there’s people and food and wrapping paper everywhere and for just a couple of moments, usually in the middle of the Christmas Eve service at church and then again when everyone stumbles down into the living room on Christmas morning, everything in the world is good and light and hopeful. The smallest things are suddenly all that matters and it becomes more important to make a bear dance and sing than anything has ever been in your whole life.
I think that the feeling I felt at the end of that party is the same feeling I feel on December 26th or 27th or whatever day sees an end to the festivities. It’s not a sadness, but rather a shock as the overload of joy and peace and love fades away and you realize that life is still going to go after Christmas and if you want all of that goodness to keep going, you’re going to have to drag it along with you. And it seems like such a big job at that moment, doesn’t it? It seems like the next Christmas is forever away and all that’s left is the crap task of cleaning up the wrapping paper and taking down the tree.
But it can’t really be that hard to keep it going, can it? I’ve seen other people who can do it and in our own way, I guess we all try to make an effort. So maybe that’s the thing we’re supposed to get from Christmas…that energy boost to keep the charity and cheer from wiping us out before the next December. I don’t know…I’ll have to check with my husband when he wakes up…he was so damn sure of the whole thing and here I am at the end of an essay and I’ve just come around to saying exactly what he already said four hours ago.
This is why I married this man. I say five words to every word that he says, but in the end he usually manages to beat me to punch anyway.
Read more here:
Thoughts on the true meaning of Christmas:I picked my husband
As were presents…..
And Grandma and Grandpa were noble and brave and took all 5 grandkids to TWO movies the day after Christmas…
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