It was December 23rd, 2005. We had just arrived
home with our two-day-old baby, Abigail. Expecting a Christmas baby had made me
plan ahead much more efficiently than most years. The tree had been up for
weeks. The presents were all bought and wrapped. The house was clean (as it
should have been, seeing as we had only lived in it for two months). We had
anticipated Christmas ahead of time, just as we were anticipating the arrival
of our first baby.
Our time in the hospital was exhausting, as these hospital
stays often are. Abigail was born at 1:00 in the morning after 11 hours of
labor. And then the fine dance began. That slow, clumsy waltz of inexperienced
mother….far from being able to claim seasoned, comfortable “mama”….and tiny,
needy, helpless babe. We met, we cuddled. She cried. I cried. Daddy cried. She
nursed. I cried more. We slept, but rarely at the same times We welcomed
visitor after visitor after visitor. First babies have a way of making people
drive the miles. We smiled with each one who came through the hospital door
bearing flowers, chocolates, stuffed animals. We were glad to share our
greatest accomplishment and prize with our friends and family, even if it meant
putting off sleep for a couple more hours or pushing aside our hospital meal as
it grew cold.
But then, we were home. Just a little family of three for a
short time, until there were more visitors. His family first. Pass around the
baby, tell the story of her arrival. Hugs goodbye. Alone again. Rock, nurse,
sleep, shush, repeat. My family next. It was Christmas Eve.
Christmas Eve. A time my family always treasured. We looked
forward to it every year. We would buy our most favorite foods. The shrimp, the
crab legs, the CHEESE. Cover everything in the finest, richest cheeses! Oh, how
we loved Christmas Eve. And in 2005, we tried to do Christmas Eve as usual. All
the finest foods. Our favorite movies. A
new grandma and grandpa proudly passing their first granddaughter back and
forth. A new uncle, a new aunt. We all barely slept that night as Abigail
reminded us that she was now the one in charge. We woke up Christmas morning,
so tired, to open presents.
And I tried. Oh, how I promise you, I tried. I wanted it to
be a nice, normal Christmas. Except it wasn’t. I wanted all of our traditions
to be exactly as they had always been. Except they couldn’t. No one told me I
would break down in tears at random (why didn’t anyone tell me???). Those
post-pregnancy hormones, they are really something. No one told me how much my
baby would need me. Need all of us, of course, but me more than anyone.
Paul and I were talking just a few nights ago about how we
both were having trouble capturing that “Christmas feeling” this year. And it
surely isn’t for lack of trying. We have decorated the tree and bought the
presents and visited Santa and watched all the movies. We have Advented and
Cantata-ed and Christmas play-ed. I’m not sad or unhappy or stressed. I don’t
feel at all like I have set some unrealistic Christmas standard to live up to.
And yet, we feel like we have had to “force” Christmas this year. What is the
issue? I’m still not quite sure.
But it made me think back to the Christmas of 2005. It made
me think of how hard we tried to have a nice, normal Christmas, when there was
nothing normal about it. I wanted to hold to all of our old traditions. But we had something NEW! SomeONE new! And as
much as she needed us, oh, how we needed her.
It made me think of Joseph and Mary. Of the visitors and the
crying and the tired. Who knows what kind of “normal” they may have been trying
to have when there was clearly nothing normal about it. They had Someone new.
Isaiah 44:18-19 says:
18 “Remember not the former things,
nor consider the things of old.
19 Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.
nor consider the things of old.
19 Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.
I didn’t realize it in the moment in 2005. But I look back
now, when I have this indescribable feeling that I’m missing something, that
Christmas feels like I am trying to manufacture it with my tired, feeble
attempts. I think back to that year and hear God whispering “Focus on the baby.
I am doing a new thing. Forget the traditions. It’s different now. I am here,
in this moment. Don’t miss Me in this. Focus on the baby.” I hear it now. How I
wish I had heard it then.
Now, whenever I talk to a couple who is expecting a baby
around the holidays, I only offer one piece of advice. I know they have heard
everything and probably will miss what I am telling them, even though it comes
from my own real experience. I tell them, “Just throw in the towel this year.
Don’t try to hold to your traditions. Don’t try to make it perfect. Stay in
your jammies all day. Eat pizza. You can start fresh next year. But your holiday,
don’t expect it to be normal because it’s not. It’s new. Focus on the baby.”