Faith

AI-generated illustration/Adobe

Friday, December 20, 2024Faith

Submit a Letter to the Editor

It's ironic, but the things we experience as obstacles to Christmas are the reasons Christmas exists at all.

With highs in the 60s and 70s (and lows staying above 40), it doesn't exactly "feel" like Christmas in southern Louisiana, at least not for anybody who was raised well north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Sure, the houses, public spaces, and stores are all full of evergreen garlands, shiny bows, and lots of lights. But while I'm secretly happy to know that Christmas here is very unlikely to be "white," decorated palm trees still make me chuckle.
Warm weather is probably near the bottom of a long list of things that can make us feel like it isn't Christmas at all. Insecure employment and financial struggles can certainly put a damper on the season. Even more so, serious health issues or the death of someone close to us in the previous year can make all the festivities around us seem anything but festive.
This year, as many of us pull out all the stops to celebrate the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, 6.7 million people -- one in six couples in the U.S. -- will be struggling with infertility. In the midst of everything we do to foster and spread Christmas joy, one in every five adults are living with a mental illness, and 16.9 percent of people over 12 years of age will be battling a substance addiction. As we recall that there was no room in the inn for the Holy Family, we may not realize that more than 650,000 of our neighbors will have experienced homelessness sometime in 2024. Close to 1.8 million will be celebrating the holidays in jail.

Obviously, I could go on. The point is that for many of us, Christmas Day won't feel much different from any other day of the year. Misery, after all, has no calendar, and in our world, someone is always suffering. But feelings never tell the whole story, and sometimes they deceive us. Christmas will come this year just like it does in every other year, whether it "feels" like Christmas or not.
Despite our circumstances -- perhaps even because of them -- the Son of God will be with us. Jesus knew exactly what he was getting into when he exchanged the glory of heaven for the harsh realities of the human condition on earth. For him, there were no surprises. And that seems to be what continues to surprise us. It's ironic, but the things we experience as obstacles to Christmas are the reasons Christmas exists at all.
With Christmas, God breaks into our prisons. He shares our needs and subjects himself to poverty. He lives within our limitations, suffers loss, and carries the weight of our sin. The birth of Jesus means that God is personally present to us in every predicament. And whether it "feels" like Christmas or not, it is Christmas and always will be. The good news is that Christmas doesn't have to come with a brimming cup of emotional hype or full set of unmet expectations. The real Christmas is real, and not a made-for-TV fantasy. When Christmas is a struggle for us, it's more like what unfolded that night in Bethlehem two thousand years ago, not less.
This Christmas, we don't have to sparkle or shine. The gifts we give or receive don't have to be the most wonderful things we ever saw. Our hearts and homes don't need to be beautiful, only open. Every one of us can choose not to believe everything we feel, or don't. The sights, sounds, and smells of a dirty cave full of livestock may not make the world feel like Christmas. But that is where Christmas took place, and where it still does.

- Jaymie Stuart Wolfe is a Catholic convert, wife, and mother of eight. Inspired by the spirituality of St. Francis de Sales, she is an author, speaker, and musician, and provides freelance editorial services to numerous publishers and authors as the principal of One More Basket. Find Jaymie on Facebook or follow her on Twitter @YouFeedThem.