Advent Day 22 and 23: Seasonal Weed and Feed

Even though there are plenty of ways we abuse the Christmas holiday with Black Friday and doorbuster sales and buy one get one and layaway and credit card debt, I can't imagine ever abandoning the tradition of giving gifts at Christmas.

Last Christmas, I had something akin to superhuman energy and assembled a dozen or so homemade Christmas gifts, and as I finished and wrapped each one, I got more and more excited for Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, when the gifts would finally be opened.  There were also a bunch of presents bought that I knew would be a surprise and a delight.  Maybe my grin and giddy sofa-dance of anticipation even topped the recipient's joy.

This year, however, I had zero thoughts of making Christmas presents, zero ambitions to top or meet last year's measure of creativity. Instead, constant on my mind this season was a longing to damper any motivations to buy gifts out of a place of obligation: This is just what you have to do at Christmas. Buy other people things.  Meh.

If you've been reading along, my Christmas spirit meter has been somewhere between "Bah, humbug," and "HO. HO. HO." most of the month.  It doesn't take long for whatever melancholy, darkness, or gloom that has seeped in to spread its tentacles into the whole of the holiday, strangling joy and sinking its bitter root deep into the season.

But the desire to find the perfect gift for someone else is like Weed and Feed - it kills the bitter root and plants joy in its place.  Gift giving is an expression of love and friendship, an opportunity to plant in someone's hand tangible evidence of affection.  Sometimes the gift is much needed.  Sometimes the gift is extravagant. Sometimes it is clear that the giver thought long and hard about the gift, regardless of expense.

But the difference between an obligatory gift and a meaningful gift is significant to both the giver and the receiver.

The magi traveled long and far to deliver their gifts of deep meaning to Jesus. Theirs was a sacrifice of time, talent, and treasure. Embracing the challenge to try to find meaningful gifts this season broadened my vision beyond the Scrooge-iness and lapse into blind consumerism. That more specific focus on others allowed some of those seeds of joy to take root, so that now, I am ready and eagerly waiting that magical time Christmas morning.

"Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, 'Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.' After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route." - Matthew 2:7-12

Advent Day 20

Elvis and Lydia's last day of school for 2013 is today.  My plan this morning was to get the Christmas shopping done with Henry in tow.  It did not go so well, unless you define success by leaving Target with a screaming and flailing child begging for a Matchbox car.  Then, yes, successful.

I did not get the Christmas shopping done. Perhaps the only good thing that came out of the morning's drive to and from Target was that I thought of all of the things I would buy if I dared take Henry into another store. In that way I am fully prepared to venture out again, hopefully childless next time.

I've quickly switched gears into consumer Christmas spirit instead of searching for the promised King the Magi are looking for in today's verses.  We're getting down to the wire. This morning I found myself rearranging my shopping list in the order of top priority: which Christmas parties and events are happening first, and which ones can wait until another day?  This would have helped had I thought of it before I went to Target instead of as I was driving away, defeated.

Defeated is a good word for the week, actually.  I have triumphed over small things - Christmas ornament exchanges and fighting back a cold with the full gamut of home remedies - but my patience thinned out yesterday as the kids took turns yelling at each other.  Oh, the noise, the noise, noise, noise, noise!  It turns me straight into the grinch.

The rest of the afternoon I am going to spend searching for silence, at least until the kids get home, and then we'll search for Christmas lights and a little good cheer to end the night.

"After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, 'Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.'" - Matthew 2:1-2