A Perfectly – Imperfect Christmas
Last week, I found myself holding my 7 year old and helping her thru the life struggle of having no snow at Christmas. The conversation went something like this…
her: wail…sniff sniff…
me: Sweetheart, what is the matter?
her: sniff sniff… the weather report says no snow on Christmas, look it’s right here on the phone.
me: Well sweetie, we have two choices… let it ruin our Christmas or just decide it’s ok and still enjoy our Christmas without snow.
her: wail… pout…
me: Can you control the weather? Can you make it snow?
her: no
me: Who does?
her: God
me: Would God want it to ruin our Christmas?
her: no
me: God might want us to learn something here … He might want us to learn that we can still have a nice Christmas without snow. He might want us to know that it doesn’t matter what the things we can’t control are like, we can still find joy in Christmas.
hummmmm….. I should know that this little sermon was really for me.
Fast forward to Christmas day.
I have had dry socket pain from a wisdom tooth that was pulled for 6 out of the last 9 days… and I was weary. As I flopped into bed Christmas Eve, I looked at my very un-perfect and messy house. (I should say, it was not horrible; it has certainly been worse!) BUT for this momma, it was bad for being Christmas Eve. However, not being able exert the energy to deal with the tooth pain and the messy house; I just went to bed.
Christmas morning found me up early… the night had been rough, the youngest had been up a lot and I had dealt with more tooth pain during the night. I started to quietly clean up the mess and get things “perfect” for when my family woke up on the special day.
I dug out the Christmas tablecloth… no centerpiece to be found.
I plugged in the Christmas tree and lights… yep that stubborn string of lights decided today was one of those off days where it could stop shining halfway thru the strand.
I set the scattered nativity pieces back in the stable (don’t’ worry it’s a plastic set that they play with) … hmmmm, Mary is missing, oh Joseph is too. Well, the shepherd will just have to do.
Do you see my dilemma?
Nothing was turing out quite right. First a wisdom tooth hurting, no centerpiece, stubborn lights, and no Mary to be seen.
I remembered my “sermon” and I replayed it… this time to myself.
“Trudie, is there anything you can do about these things that you view as missing from your perfect Christmas?”
me: No. Well yeah, I could have stayed up later, I could be more organized, I COULD be a BETTER MOM.”
((Has anyone else ever said that? If I would just be a BETTER MOM… please say I’m not alone.))
What do you think Jesus whispered? “Trudie, you have a choice. Are you going to let it ruin your Christmas, or are you just going to decide it’s ok and still enjoy your Christmas with tooth pain, missing centerpieces, broken lights, and a missing Mary?”
Still more “Trudie, God might want you to learn some thing here … He might want you to learn that you can still have a nice Christmas without it being PERFECT. You CAN still find joy in an Imperfect Christmas.”
Perfectly – Imperfect!
And though we found ourselves at a dentist appointment on Christmas Day… it still turned out to be a Wonderful, Perfect Christmas!
I think I need to learn to apply this to more areas of my life! How do you enjoy the moments that are perfectly-imperfect? I’d love to hear about it!
Trudie, you brought such a bright spot into my Christmas day! Seeing your sweet little girlies bring me a sweet gift was so special. Perfection is hard to achieve and doesn’t always make for the best times for our families. It just makes us feel better about ourselves. God wants us to enjoy our families and make memories. We should do the best we can and not worry about the imperfections. Love you! Aunt Kris
It was a bright spot in our day too 🙂
That is so so true about perfection, it does only make us feel better about ourselves! Often it can make our family miserable! So true! Thanks for sharing! Love you too! Trudie