Christmas quiet time

We hear from so many places that these are the few weeks of the year when everything and everyone slows down, turns inward, and focuses on one another… But it doesn’t come easily to everyone just a few days before Christmas.

Between deadlines, children’s activities, and things to do at home, we can easily forget why this is the most beautiful time of the year. We can easily fall into the trap of experiencing the children’s Christmas performances as a burden because, although we go and watch them, our minds are busy wondering what still needs to be done before Christmas Eve, whose gift hasn’t been bought yet, how much work we should finish in the few days remaining, and who is going to cook the fish soup. We sigh when we see yet another invitation, wondering why we have to go into kindergarten or school again, why they are inviting us to another communal baking session or sing-along, when we have so much to do—how will everything fit in?

It shouldn’t be this way.

Christmas programs aren’t there to make things difficult for us. They don’t invite us because they have nothing better to do, and they don’t spend weeks preparing because they have so much free time.

They do it because they want to help you, all of us, and even themselves feel the holiday drawing closer—the real, capital-H Holiday.

That is where the true beauty of Christmas lies: when we are able to see the wonder and beauty in everything, exactly as children do. If you tell them to look for signs of angels in the garden or the house, you can be sure they will find some. (Even if you don’t put anything there.)

When we truly pay attention, we see the anticipation and joy on our children’s faces—the same feelings that once shone on ours, but were lost somewhere on the threshold of adulthood and return only very rarely.

Sometimes they come back…

They come back when you watch your little girl’s ballet performance.

They come back when all the little angels and shepherds parade at the kindergarten nativity play, then stand up and sing because they want to bring joy to their parents.

They come back when the children excitedly light the fourth candle on the wreath they made themselves.

They come back when, on the way home, they gaze in wonder at the countless brightly lit houses where “Jesus must surely have already been.”

They come back when you sing together with the other parents on the day before the last break, and as you look at the children’s faces, you can barely make it through The Angel from Heaven without crying.

They come back when you have finished your work and know that, for a few days now, you truly don’t have to deal with anyone or anything outside your family.

They come back when you revive old family traditions.

They come back when you receive unexpected, kind messages from people you know genuinely wish you a happy Christmas from the bottom of their hearts.

They come back when, one day before Christmas, you bake together the treats you used to make with your parents, your favorite songs are playing, and you feel that everything is all right even if you have no idea how you’ll decorate the tree in secret and not all the gifts have been wrapped.

They come back when you watch the same cartoon or movie for the hundredth time—the one you always watch at this time of year.

The world won’t end if your brother-in-law’s gift arrives a few days later than it should. Not even if, instead of the usual four kinds of cookies, you bake only two this year—nor even if you haven’t managed to put up every decoration you wanted to, despite these being the final days.

If you let these things go and simply shrug your shoulders, one day you will suddenly notice that everything around you has truly grown quiet—and, along with it, so have you…