What I like and don’t like about Christmas…

Post on 18 December, 2019 by Dallin Malmgren

It’s the most con­flict­ed time of the year. Most eager­ly antic­i­pat­ed by children—highly stress­ful to many adults. A time of giv­ing and a time of adding debt. Wor­ship and idol­a­try. Uncon­di­tion­al love and avid self-inter­est. Fam­i­ly tra­di­tions and per­ilous trav­el plans. Let’s face it—love and hate.

My orig­i­nal plan was to write about what I like about the sea­son. That got me to think­ing about all the things I didn’t like (love and hate are too strong of words). And so I com­bined them.

Like: The time off your reg­u­lar sched­ule. For teach­ers, Christ­mas break is heav­en. For almost every­body, it means at least some extra time. Even if you’re retired, you get extra time with loved ones who aren’t.

Don’t like: The hus­tle and bus­tle. Time off should mean relax­ation. At Christ­mas­time, every­one is in a hur­ry. I was at Tar­get last Sat­ur­day morning—a mad­house. The only thing worse was the traf­fic get­ting there.

Like: The prepa­ra­tion. There’s some­thing com­fort­ing about going up in the attic and pulling down ten crates of Christ­mas para­pher­na­lia. Open­ing them up and redis­cov­er­ing some­thing that you had entire­ly for­got­ten about. Believ­ing that it does get eas­i­er to put the same stuff up (with a few addi­tions, of course) year after year. And, yes, it is still glo­ri­ous to plug every­thing in and have it all light up.

Don’t like: The preparation—(two sides to this coin): The phys­i­cal lift­ing does get hard­er. Going through the crates makes you real­ize how much use­less junk you have. (I’ll bet the thrift stores of Amer­i­ca have a thou­sand tons of strings of lights. My esti­ma­tion of how many of them still light up: 73%). When you are putting up dec­o­ra­tions, there is always some­thing that goes wrong. Always. And now you have ten semi-emp­ty crates to put some­where until you fill them again after Christmas.

Like: The char­i­ty. There is def­i­nite­ly a spir­it of giv­ing that per­vades the Christ­mas sea­son. I think it is God-inspired…but it is also a way for us to look away from our own lives and help oth­ers. We need that in stress­ful times. I was a Sal­va­tion Army bell­ringer one Christ­mas. It was amaz­ing to watch the world go by like that. Now I always stop and give them something.

Don’t like—(ahh, her comes the Scrooge): The gifts. It seems so… (My wife read this one and just looked at me. Yeah, I def­i­nite­ly have a lit­tle Scrooge in me. I repent.)

Like: Fam­i­ly. Duh. It’s when they or you dri­ve away that you real­ize how impor­tant it was to have some time with them. Cousins becom­ing true friends. It’s all very complex—and it can some­times become stress­ful. But you ride away know­ing it was time well-spent. At least I do.

Don’t like: The trav­el. I’m almost para­noid about it. My daugh­ter is mov­ing to Squamish, British Colum­bia. If we have a Christ­mas out there, I’ll prob­a­bly arrive mid-Decem­ber and leave mid-Jan­u­ary. I want to be nowhere near an air­port nowhere near Christ­mas. And is there any place you real­ly want to dri­ve in Decem­ber? (Karen wasn’t crazy about this one either…but I stick to my guns. I would take her to a cab­in in Yellowstone—just not at Christmas.

Like: The real music. Our church does a can­ta­ta every Christ­mas. Car­ol­ing is cool from both sides. I love it when the church goes dark and we sing “Silent Night” as we light the can­dles at Christ­mas eve ser­vice. And there are always songs or hymns that set the per­fect tone for where you are at that moment. (I’ll nev­er for­get the first time I heard Robert Earl Keen’s “Mer­ry Christ­mas to the Family.”)

Don’t like: The rest of the music—I’m sure that most of you know what I mean.

Like: The vibe of Christ­mas. I think it even tran­scends Chris­tian­i­ty. Good will toward humankind. We look at those less for­tu­nate with com­pas­sion. We see our neigh­bors as peers. We accept our com­mon human­i­ty. We are more hopeful.

Don’t like: The stress. I don’t under­stand it, but it is infec­tious. Peo­ple wor­ry more at Christ­mas. Is that right, or is it just that their wor­ries are focused on one par­tic­u­lar hol­i­day? Do exchanges become sharp­er more quick­ly? Is it just me, or is there a gen­er­al sense of relief when the day is over?

Like: The mean­ing of Christ­mas. Amaz­ing. We are so sep­a­rat­ed from our lov­ing Cre­ator that He decides to become one of us. Not to appear to us or daz­zle us—to be exact­ly like us. To show us what He is like in a way we can see. And it works—humanity is rec­on­ciled to God. Believe.

Don’t like: Most of us don’t get it.

Comments

  • Reply

    I real­ly like the pho­tos of you with this! Mer­ry Christmas!
    Xox

    Annalisa19 December, 2019
  • Reply

    Won­der­ful read — as usu­al — you make us stretch our brains, at my age it is need­ed!! Agree to most every­thing. We put so much pres­sure on our­selves to top our expec­ta­tions. Our kids, our grand­kids, are my gifts. Christ­mas is not the same with­out my Mom. She would be stressed and then like a gid­dy kid watch­ing the kids and grand­kids open their gifts. She spoiled us all. I miss her.

    Mer­ry Christ­mas to your fam­i­ly — safe jour­neys for all.

    Barb McMindes19 December, 2019
  • Reply

    I vowed a few years ago to make Christ­mas more like thanks­giv­ing. Lots of won­der­ful food and gath­er­ings of fam­i­ly and friends. There are a few stores I like to go to for Christ­mas, most­ly local. I like to find fun­ny tshirts and lit­tle unusu­al things. I avoid the malls like the plague. I LOVE Christ­mas lights and Char­lie Brown trees. I always take time away from paint­ing to make Christ­mas orna­ments. This year I’m mak­ing felt orna­ments inspired by anthropologie.

    As to “most of us don’t get it”. Heav­en is spread upon the earth and men don’t see it 

    Love to you and yours, Dal

    Squamish is won­der­ful. Eagle watch­ing, sushi sen(best sushi I’ve ever had) Shan­non falls. The gon­do­la, sea to sky high­way. The fer­ry to the Sun­shine Coast. Great cof­fee shops every­where! Avoid it in win­ter unless you wan to stay inside and watch the rain. But catch the salmon run.

    Gretch19 December, 2019

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