Christmas Adam

Today is Christmas Adam, the day our family normally settles in for our somewhat quiet, cloistered holy days. We clean bathrooms, mop the floors, prepare cookies and add a last dash of sparkle to our hearth and home. I don’t suspect it will be the same this year, and I am very much okay with that. Mary Hannah has a special guest arriving for a long-awaited visit when she gets off work this evening, and the older boys have work and life today and even tomorrow. So it will not be the still, contemplative slip into Christmas Day that we’ve celebrated in the past. But that seems fitting in such a year of transitions. Things are not as they always were, and that is good and right. We are not static; we grow and change as the edges of our seasons pull taut.

The younger children and I will still cling to our Christmas Adam pattern, though. There is a sense of wonder and rhythm to this day of tidying a handful things and making a few special treats. It sets up the final space in one’s heart, I think, for walking in to the joyous moments of celebrating the birth of Christ for what it truly is: the fulfillment of a promise that began the process that ultimately freed us from our sins and made the way for our reconciliation with God.

Last night, during our family’s Advent reading from Luke, we read chapter 22. Immediately upon finishing, Simon piped in, “The Easter story!” A long conversation ensued where we talked over the journey this Gospel has led us on this month, and how each step was as necessary as the one that came before it. The birth of Christ is miraculous. It’s awe-inspiring. It’s beautiful. But it’s not the end. And truly, it’s not the point. Our children grasp this deeply, and it is just as much a part of their concept of Christmas and how they celebrate that baby in the manger as the angels in the sky announcing the good news to a band of shepherds.

I used to think it was difficult to raise kids who make those spiritual connections and can flesh through the trappings of the season to find the real meaning. I used to worry over whether I was doing it right, if we would eventually be proven to be the Scrooges everyone warned us we’d seem by thumping our Bibles instead of embracing Santa and milk and cookies and telling our kids to listen for reindeer hooves on the roof. I found myself in prayer often that we would not be stripping the “magic” from something precious our children could never recapture, but rather giving them a tradition of gratitude and awe wrapped in all the warm, Christ-focused memories I hoped they would come away with.

I don’t question our choices any longer. And I don’t think the road to which we were led is any more challenging than any other path in parenting. Sure, there were uncomfortable conversations with loved ones outlining our convictions, and many reminders over the years to small children not to “spoil” Santa for others, but truthfully, every family has their own areas where they do not walk lockstep with the world.  Our family has quite a few, and our preferred Christmas focus is just one of the distinctives that define who we are. As my oldest children have become adults, I’ve been asked how I will feel should some of the branches of our tree feel drawn to the more commercialized approach to Christmas. Will I be able to keep my mouth shut when one of my grandbabies tells me that they are asking Santa for a new doll? I didn’t know how I would answer ten years ago, but today, I realize that the places God has led us are a foundation for our children, not their final destination. There is grace for the roads they will walk as adults, and as someone who recognizes that I am no one’s Holy Spirit, I feel comfortable allowing them to own that journey.

We give our children background music. We construct a safe, welcoming set of established expectations and anticipated traditions they can look back on and draw from as they define their own lives. This morning, I will lay out butter to soften, and pull out the peppermint Kisses I’ve kept hidden away in the pantry. I will write out a list of household chores as a checklist, and children will claim them as they wish, eagerly racing one another to put as many of the final pieces of straw in the Giving Manger as they can before Christmas morning. For the next two days, our meals will be the simplest fare: a pot of beans and cornbread, bowls of soup. We will finish the book of Luke. The older kids will come and go as they need. I will not assume they will be here to add sprinkles to cookies or finish our final chapter of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Christmas Day will come, and it will be the one and only Christmas 2020 our family ever experiences. Unique. Defined by the circumstances and specifics of our family in this season, now. But very much as God has ordered, and very much as it has always been: full of grace.