This past week, my Mom and I were spending a lot of time around each other due to just plain proximity and so, as the head of the Christmas magic making team, she used me as an advisor to a lot of her planning. Just a few days ago, she found out that not only was my sister and her husband spending the night over Christmas Eve, but on Christmas morning, 4 of their in-laws were coming over too.
Mom panicked as any mother would rightly do. She worried about gifts, housing, games, decorations, cleanliness, dishes, parking, menus...etc. And with that worry, other worries were encouraged to come to the surface to join in the festivities.
At one point in all of this, I managed to insert, "Mom. Remember the point, the reason for giving? It's true, we should give, but not because of "fear of man." That misses the whole idea. Christ would want us to give for the feeling it brings each of us in the giving. The food is for celebration, but really, it's about communion and getting together and stuff. We're losing Christmas in all of this holiday planning and I miss it."
There was a lot of stuff that I did to make things simpler, but Mom wanted to impress, so we fought a lot. And what I found from all of these mini tug-o-wars was that, the closer we got to simplicity, the easier it got to feel the Spirit. But even then, I feel like others didn't feel it most of the time. I know that the best part of Christmas was when I sat there in the bath and read the gospels, then played hymn-type things on the flute. That, and being together, teasing each other mercilessly as siblings do (whether it was over food or gifts, it didn't seem to matter).
I guess I really wanted to mix those two feelings. The peace and focus on what really mattered, combined with the communion of kin.
There were gifts I enjoyed giving. And that was nice, but it was also a communion, not a contest. Often I would give the gift and they'd be excited, but it would get set to the side as we played and talked together because that's the part that really mattered.
It goes back to the lesson I'm really learning right now about the right order of things. You can do all the right things in the wrong order and it will be wrong. The wise men brought gifts, but the point was worship. They would not have been so wise if they had brought gifts to physically show him how much time or money they spent on the gifts and then forget the worship part. So that's what I want to do. Keep the importance on the right thing.
