Maybe this isn’t the place to admit this. But here it goes: I love the happy endings in every cheesy Hallmark Christmas movie. I forget the channel exists approximately 335 days out of the year. And then Thanksgiving comes along and my fingers know the digits to exactly one channel for a solid month. (Ok, you caught me, maybe two if you include Lifetime.)
It’s the time of the year when crackling candles and Charlie Brown music and twinkle lights fill us with Christmas cheer. We all LOVE love. So, naturally, the wise people over at Hallmark have figured out the recipe to a festive treat for our aching souls. All the single ladies know that in these movies, the lonely beauty always finds love just in time for Christmas morning. All the married ladies know that in these movies, children (and husbands) always repent just in time for Santa’s arrival.
It’s a magical time for beautiful fictional characters. The perfect Christmas.
I can feel all the eyes rolling.
For most of us normal humans, reality looks nothing like these calculated tales. In fact, very little remains wrapped up in a tidy bow on the afternoon of December 25, as new toys and hearts will break in a widespread epidemic.
It’s a season of too much. I’ll end up in the fetal position after eating too many Christmas cookies with sprinkles that call my name.
It’s a season of not enough. The babies in the family will cry when it’s time to clean up all the wrapping paper and boxes (more fun than the actual gifts inside!) and we have to say, “All gone!”
It’s a season of finding the reason. If we look in the wrong places, we might think the reason for the season is to have a perfect family around the perfect Christmas tree opening the perfect gifts. Cue the toys and hearts breaking when life doesn’t quite live up to this expectation of perfection.
This year, all I want for Christmas is to really feel the reason for the season. The fall-on-my-knees kind of feeling for a precious baby who flipped my world upside down.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices!
O night divine, the night when Christ was born
It’s a season of feeling the thrill of hope as we, the weary world, rejoice for our Savior who came – and who promises to come again.
And if you live in the same weary world as me, I bet you could use some good old-fashioned rejoicing for the story of all stories.
For the Spirit of all spirits.
For the happy ending of all happy endings.
For the promise that we are not alone this Christmas.
She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” – which means, “God with us.”
Matthew 1:21-22