For the Weary December Parent

This is the point in December where I hit a wall. EVEN when I have had the best intentions. Even when I did all the planning and shopping and scheming and preparing weeks, even months ahead. I think to myself–”This is going to be the year I will savor! It will feel magical! I am going to be joyful and take it all in!”

Then I start to get a limp. Band Concerts and theme weeks and caroling field trips and trying to keep up with work. 

Then the limp turns to a crawl. Class parties and work parties and school Christmas programs and church Christmas programs and shoot did I forget to get a gift for that one person? The kids are whinier and crankier than usual which adds to the overstimulation and of course this is also when the garage decides to stop working. 

Then the crawl turns to a full out face plant.  Everything is seemingly falling apart. I am forgetting things.There are piles of stuff everywhere. I am losing my keys daily.  I am snapping on my family and wondering where I went wrong. Why can’t I figure December out? What is wrong with me that I can turn into such a crab during such a magical time?

Of course I know nothing is actually wrong with me. Yet every year I get so MAD at December. I get mad at what the world has turned this season into. And then I get mad at myself for being cranky and tired. Makes sense.

Let it be known that this is being written by a person who says NO to A LOT. I am also a person who could care less about having the perfect tree, the perfect house, all the matching outfits…all I want is to enjoy the season and enjoy my kids. That’s it! That is my simple goal!  Instead I am unfairly put beyond my human capacity and expected to be merry about it. 

But here is the thing that has been on my mind lately…

You know all those classic Christmas movies everybody loves? Think about your own favorites for a moment. What do they have in common?

Things are a hot mess.

George Bailey longs for a different life, Clark Griswold is trying to make memories only to be met with disaster after disaster, the Grinch is angry and lonely, Kevin McAllister literally gets forgotten by his family. And yet the spirit of Christmas came for them anyway, right in the nick of time.

I often wonder about how Mary and Joseph felt on that night of the first Christmas. Anxious. Stressed. Knowing the single most important moment of their lives was coming any second and they didn’t even have a place to go. Why did God pick them if they couldn’t even offer more than a dirty old barn to house the birth of a king. What a mess. 

But as everyone says, the mess was the whole point. To come to us in the most humblest of ways right in the middle of our overwhelm and weariness and anxiousness. To offer hope. To say to us, “I see you and I am here with you now.”

I still have many strong opinions about the extra fluff of expectations around this time that are downright ridiculous, especially for parents, but that is a novel for another day. 

The first Christmas came during a dark and weary time. And every December I find myself naturally weary and longing for hope and relief –which is exactly as it should be.

So if you don’t feel merry and if the whole season just feels like a mess right now…nothing is wrong with you.  Maybe Christmas should be representative of our humanity so that we are led to fall down on our knees, full surrender, letting the light and hope of Jesus come TO US. Not the other way around. 

I (almost) always come limping into Advent, desperate for light, but almost too tired to look for it.Then I remember: The Light came looking for me, and that’s the whole point.- Annie B. Jones