Am I ready for Christmas? Sort of. I always start out early, buying gifts that I think would be great for people throughout the year. Then suddenly, it’s December and I’m shocked.
This year I bought lots of gifts on our trip to China—so many I had to buy another suitcase to get them home. I stacked them up in my dining room. Then Thanksgiving came, and I had to move them so we could actually eat in the dining room. Now they’re buried somewhere deep within our bedroom.
The gifts I ordered online in November are backordered. We didn’t get the Christmas tree last weekend because I was pushing to get a project with an unmovable deadline done, and my husband was leaving on a business trip. The kids were happy because they want to get the tree together, but they won’t be home for a week. Our Christmas cards are up in the air because we usually send a family picture, but with kids away at college it’s been hard to get us all together. We did get our Christmas decorations up in the yard, and I slapped a wreath on the door, but on this side of the door, it is still fall.
Yet, somehow, between now and Christmas, it will all come together. The tree will be decorated. The packages will be wrapped and sent to family and friends. I’ll write our annual Christmas letter, and tuck it in with our cards. I’ll sort through the presents I’ve bought, and then run out without any idea of what to buy for whoever doesn’t have enough gifts in their pile. I’ll play Christmas songs in the car and sing along while searching for a parking space at the mall. We’ll bake cookies and eat way too many. We’ll watch “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” and “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and the kids will groan when I insist that we watch the Walton family in “The Homecoming: A Christmas Story.” We’ll rip our closets apart to find something to wear to church on Christmas Eve. The essentials will get done. I used to scold myself about not having everything done perfectly, about only being “sort of” ready, but in the end it always worked out just fine.
Mary and Joseph were “sort of” ready for Jesus’ birth. They knew He was coming, but had to make that trip to Bethlehem to be counted in the census. When they got to Bethlehem, there was no room at the inn. They made the best of it, found a quiet place for Mary to give birth. Then they wrapped Jesus in swaddling clothes, and laid Him to sleep in a manger. They had faith. They knew what was ultimately important. Jesus was born into a world “sort of” ready for Him, and in the end it worked out just fine.
Laura Keolanui Stark is a freelance writer. She can be reached at lkstark@yahoo.com. (Originally published in The Herald, www.puyallupherald.com as “Counting down to Christmas,” on 12/23/09.)
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