The True Meaning of Christmas

Six years ago, my Christmas season centered on the arrival of a baby -- our second child, due December 23. As my final weeks of pregnancy coincided with the time when I would normally be busy with holiday preparations, the regular hustle-and-bustle of the season grew along with my belly, but my energy level went in the opposite direction.

Christmas-card mailing, cookie baking, decorating, shopping, gift-wrapping, parties? Reluctantly, I skipped much of it or did it in less festive ways – shopping online or months before snow graced the store parking lots, letting my spouse and our first son decorate, declining the party invitations. What a strange Christmas season it was! So many of the activities we usually cram into it were set aside because of our focus on the coming baby. I didn’t even plan a Christmas dinner, figuring if all went according to schedule, I’d be in the hospital on the 24^th or 25^th – which, as it turned out, I was!

As our 6-year-old celebrated at Grandma and Grandpa’s, my spouse and I labored at the hospital, and in the last hour of December 25, our baby boy was born. The fact that we had missed out on the feasting with family, the fun chaos of gift-opening, the over-indulging in cookies and fudge on Christmas Eve and Day – all that paled in comparison to our focus on the baby. And looking back over the month, it didn’t matter either that fewer decorations had been hung at our house, fewer treats prepared, fewer holiday outings made. The only thing that truly mattered was the arrival of one very special baby, God’s gift of love to our family.

Then it dawned on me: This is how it should be every year. The baking, card-writing, shopping, wrapping, decorating, party-going, and meal-planning are all fun and good. But their importance pales in comparison to that which is the true purpose of Christmas: our focus on the arrival of One Very Special Baby – the Christ-Child, the Babe of Bethlehem, the Son not just of earthly parents but of God. Everything else we do in the weeks surrounding December 24 and 25 holds meaning only to the extent that it deepens our focus on the coming of this Baby!

Hold him in your heart this Christmas season, as I held my newborn in my arms on Christmas Day night, 2004. If the regular hustle-and-bustle of the season distracts you from the Baby, don’t do it! If the traditional activities drain away the energy you need to focus on the Baby, lay them aside! If the season is more stressful than joyous, take a breather and consider what you can let go in order to more fully embrace the true meaning of Christmas – the birth of the Baby Jesus, God’s Gift of Love to the whole world!

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Photo by Crystal Leigh Shearin at www.sxc.hu.