Oh. What a terrible pun.
In past years, Christmas was not fun for me. Too much pressure, stress, perfectionism, wanting to do things I didn't have money or time to do. It was my yearly "beat myself up" fest. What a great thing, what a lovely gift, to give oneself for Christmas.
It sucked, because when I was little, I loved it. Who doesn't love Christmas when they're little?
But as I grew up and expectations changed, and most of those expectations were expected of me, it became hard and yucky and a season, sadly, to just get through.
One thing changed that: My stake's Festival of Nativities.
It's usually held the weekend after Thanksgiving, right when all things Christmas (TV and radio ads and crazed shopping) are getting under way. I still remember the first time I walked into our transformed cultural hall and was amazed, almost to tears, at the beautiful scenes and the obvious hard work that had been performed. What a crazy thing to do - ask people to bring their Nativity sets and household furnishings to the church, so we could all experience this awesome Christmas feeling together. And what a huge impact it had on me.
The year I started helping with it changed all my Christmases forever. I don't do anything very important for it - this year I ironed large pieces of fabric and made up the scavenger hunt the hosts pass out to the kids. "Find a Nativity made entirely of frogs... Find the Lego Nativity..." It is service easily performed, and it is completely voluntary and really has nothing to do with me. My name isn't on the committee members list; it's just for fun. It's for my benefit.
This week of helping and this weekend of enjoying sets a sweet tone for the rest of the month, putting the focus on the Savior. He's so nice. And He doesn't care if I get my Christmas cards mailed on time or if I take treats to every family on the block.
There are other things that have resurrected the Christmas spirit in me, but we'll talk about those another time. This is probably the biggest and most important thing anyway. This is my reason for wanting to celebrate of my own free will, instead of doing it just because it's expected.
I wish you success in finding your reason, and I wish you a very merry Christmas, full of letting go, and lowered expectations, and lapsed deadlines, and long deep breaths, and love.
Enjoying the Christmas present,
Fisher Cutbait
3 comments:
What a neat thing. I wish someone did it here. One of these years I'll get organized and start one. It just seems like such a neato idea.
You should come up and attend ours sometime, so you can see what I'm talking about :)
I love this! Merry Christmas!
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