Finding Christmas

It’s time!

Is your tree up? Have you hung your stockings? Are your advent calendars out? Lights on the house? Snowman dishes placed decoratively on the table? Are the wreaths, garland, and tinsel all placed with care?

What about Christmas goodies - fudge, decorated sugar cookies, divinity, and turtle pretzels? Are they all made and set out in their proper tins?

How about that shopping list? We are down to 20 shopping days left. Have you purchased all your gifts? Are they wrapped?

Don’t forget about the kids’ activities! Is your son ready for his part in the church Christmas pageant? Do you have the plates and tablecloths to take to the class party? Have you checked Pinterest for the cutest way to present teacher gifts?

Then there is all the planning. When will you see your family? Do you have multiple sides to visit? Have you done the math and made the strategic calendar that has each stop down to the minute so you get everyone in? Do you have the menu ready for those coming to your house?

Amid all this hullabaloo, are you penciling in time for appreciating the season?

I think I have “moment of reflection and appreciation” scratched in somewhere between wrapping present 16 and making cheesecake brownies for our mail person.

This is not the first article ever written about not getting caught up in the busyness of Christmas. I’m sure you’ve heard it before; in fact, we all have. We aren’t always that great at listening, though.

Instead of telling you not to do all the things, though, I’m going to ADD something to your list.

Crazy, I know.

Dr. Seuss’s Grinch reminds us Christmas isn’t about gifts and decorations. Those things are fun (well, they are if you aren’t the Grinch, anyway), but we know from every holiday special on T.V. that they aren’t what’s important about Christmas.

In a blog I wrote last year, “Lovin’ Christmas,” I talked about how this is the season to bask in God’s love for us. Lexi wrote about something similar in “Every Good and Perfect Gift.” This is the time of year when we need to practice opening our eyes and looking for the gifts he’s given us every day. There is, of course, the one big gift, the true reason for the season - Jesus. If sending Jesus for our salvation was all God ever did for us, it would be so much more than we could hope for or deserve. However, God doesn’t stop there. Every day, he is giving us “good and perfect gifts” (James 1:17); we just don’t always take the time to see them.

I still believe this is the season to do that. So, I encourage you to read those posts and add “Look for the good gifts God has given” to your list of to-dos this season if it isn’t already there.

This year, though, let’s add another - Doing good deeds for your neighbor.

This passage in the Bible always gets me: "Then they will reply, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and didn’t do anything to help you?' Then he will answer, 'I assure you that when you haven't done it for one of the least of these, you haven't done it for me”’ (Matthew 25: 44-45).

I’ve written about this one before, too, sort of. You can read about my growth in “Be Good, Do Good.” I know it has become a cliche thing to talk about during Christmas time. You can search for “random acts of kindness” and find all kinds of ideas to help those around you easily enough, so I won’t bother with posting a list for you here.

People complain, rightfully, that we shouldn’t focus on doing good things just at Christmas time. They are absolutely right. We shouldn’t. Doing good for others should be part of our identities as we become more like Christ. It shouldn’t be something we have to give special thought to. It should be as natural as breathing.

But here’s the thing: our world isn’t as it should be, and, though I may be trying, I still have a ways to go before I claim I am truly walking as Jesus walked. Because of that, I think Christmas is the perfect time to renew our focus on helping others.

We need the intentionality this season brings, I think. Looking for ways to help others takes practice. Truly.

Don’t believe me? I’d encourage you to do this. What if I challenged you to do one act of kindness a day for someone else from now until Christmas day?

Could you think of something YOU could do every day? Those lists I mentioned earlier are great, but even with a list of 100 suggestions, I sometimes struggle to fill every day. Believe me, I’ve really tried. Over the last two years, my family and I have committed to do this very thing.

Some of the days go great. I’ve brought food to friends in need, mailed encouraging notes, given surprise monetary gifts, and made visits to shut-ins. We’ve kept a calendar and made a plan. Even so, there are days when I had to give us credit for that door we held open for a stranger.

Should that even count? I mean, it was a nice thing to do, but where I live, everyone opens the door for everyone, so it doesn’t really fit what I had originally planned. Still, I’d say our experiments in 24 days of kindness have been successful for the most part, but a lot harder than I’d thought.

This year, though, I’ve been challenged to approach our acts of kindness differently. You see, our church had a big, fun fall event. For that event, we were asked to invite someone who didn’t go to church to come with us.

‘This is great,’ I thought, until our pastor asked us to text him the names of the people God put on our hearts to invite.

My heart didn’t have a name. I thought and thought, and I just couldn’t come up with anyone. Why?

Well, part of it is where I live. Most people I know and interact with in our community already go to church.

Also, I work virtually, and my coworkers are from all over the state.

My pastor continued (I don’t think he was getting many texts at first) and asked how many of us knew our neighbors. Could we invite them?

Now, he meant our literal neighbors - like across the street. I shamefully had to admit I knew one set of neighbors pretty well and two others by sight (you know, we wave when we see each other drive up, but that’s it).

Other than that, I had nothing. There’s a whole street of houses going east and west of me. If you go far enough in one direction, there is even some lower-income housing. I don’t know most of them. What’s worse, I’ve never even tried to get to know or meet them.

Yes, Jesus wants us to love our universal ‘neighbors’ - you know, EVERYONE, but that doesn’t exclude us from the responsibility to our ACTUAL neighbors.

So, this year, my family and I are setting the goal of doing our acts of kindness - acts of Jesus’ love, really, for our actual, physical neighbors. I won’t lie, this is MUCH harder for me.

It’s relatively easy to do something kind for a stranger. There are no strings attached. Here’s your happy thing, God bless you, and move on. We have no ties, don’t know each other’s names, and we likely won’t cross paths again.

Interacting in my actual neighborhood means I might have to, GULP, talk to people. I am likely to see them again, and when I do, I might even have to talk to them…again. That’s a scary prospect for this little introvert.

But, that’s kind of the whole point, isn’t it?

My hope in doing this is that from these acts, relationships might follow - with each other and with Jesus.

Acts of kindness and of love done to develop new relationships - that’s my goal this Christmas season.

I’d challenge you to take this on as well. Let it be said of us that we are truly living in the Joy of Christmas this year.

Who knows? It may even become a habit we continue to live out all year long.