Shiny and new and twinkly…or not?

Thanksgiving is over and honestly, it went well.  You know how you don’t realize you are stressed about something until it’s over and you feel an immense amount of relief?  Does that happen to you?

I woke up on Monday morning and felt lighter, freer, happier, more relaxed.  Then I looked at my emails and realized the whole world was sleeping for the weekend and now everyone is READY to ROCK and ROLL.  The busy holiday season has started.

I walked outside and saw the Christmas decorations were up all over the neighborhood.  Apparently my neighbors were not sleeping or laying around eating and watching movies.   Again, I wondered how the heck people are so fast?!  My house still had pumpkins and mums greeting you at the front door. It made me tired to think about putting up decorations.  I wondered if it would be bad if we had no lights, no wreath…would it look like we don’t love Baby Jesus?

So I went downstairs and started looking through my Christmas decorations and decided everything was UGLY.  Not in a, “This is fine, not ideal, but let’s put it up anyway” kind of way.  More like, “Yuck, I have nothing to decorate with, this is going to be expensive” kind of way.

Then I remembered Jesus.

Then I thought of Target… and Pottery Barn.

I tried to remind myself about Jesus being the reason for the season but I was too busy on Pinterest planning my Christmas decorations.

I went to get the mail and there were catalogs with beautiful things.

I went to pick up something at a store that happened to be next to a store with a lot of beautiful Christmas decorations.  When I say beautiful, I mean SPARKLY!!!  There was silver and green and glitter and it was so enticing!  I told the woman there, “I want my house to look like this!  I have to have it all!”  She was smart enough to tell me I have to go in phases and it may take years to transition to a new look.  I nodded my head in agreement as I was planning on finding a way to make it happen this year.

I told her I need to go home and reassess.  Which clearly I do.  I mean…I want to be SPARKLY!  I feel like a kid who wants a toy.  I want the house that glitters and welcomes and smells good and lights up.  I want all the things that are shiny and new and twinkly.

But that’s not how it works, is it?

We want, we want, we want.

I started thinking about Baby Jesus.  I forced myself to focus.  I realized that Mary probably wanted a room at an Inn.  She probably didn’t want to be traveling.  She probably wished she was married.  Maybe she wished she was older.  She may have been afraid.  I don’t know if she knew about sparkly things but that whole manger scene doesn’t scream “SPARKLE”!   It seems like it was dark and cold and not perfect.  I mean really…animals?  No Williams Sonoma crib with a sparkly chandelier?

Ironically, as I was writing this earlier, the power went out.  About 5 minutes later, I had to drive my daughter to tennis so when we left the house, the whole entire neighborhood was dark.  Pitch black.  I took it as a Holy Spirit sign about Christmas.

Think about it.  The whole world was dark.  It needed a Savior.  It needed light.  He didn’t show up all sparkly but He was the embodiment of light.  He wasn’t a king in a robe with lots of servants…He became a servant.  He wasn’t rich.  He was just a baby.  Of all the ways for a Savior to come into the world, that’s pretty cool.  Innocent and small and not all jacked up on material stuff.  Simple yet profound.

On that note, maybe a simple wreath on the door will be enough to signal to the neighbors that we love Baby Jesus.

©2012 Sue Bidstrup, Great Big Yes™ All Rights Reserved