Fran Brown, Gene Decker Study Class
Isaiah 7:14 (RSV)
“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”

Reflection:
I am one of those people who is subject to holiday depression. This was especially true when my three children were young. I wanted them to have beautiful memories of our family celebrations, but I didn’t get the Christmas letter written or the matching pajamas bought for the Christmas card photo. My results at wreath-making or cookie decorating or ornament crafting didn’’t match up to the magazine photos. My friend seemed to have it so together—with her new color scheme every year. Why couldn’t I do it just like Better Homes and Gardens? My logical side knew my expectations were unrealistic, but my hope for the perfect holiday shined brightly. I even took a workshop and read the excellent book ​Unplug the Christmas Machine​ about how to de-stress my holidays and focus on what was really important about these holy days. I posted the Christmas Pledge on the refrigerator, but I wasn’t really all in. December 25 came, but it wasn’t my perfect Christmas moment.

One of the Christmas moments our children loved was March to the Manger, the Sunday in early December when the children left their Sunday School rooms to take gifts for charity to a live Nativity. There was the smell of hay in the air, maybe even a live animal or two, and a couple dressed as Mary and Joseph who were brave enough to allow several hundred children to pass within 10 feet of their believably newborn child. I wanted to see the scene to boost my Christmas spirit, so on my way to pick up my children for church, I swung by Fellowship Hall. The last 4-year-olds were departing for their room when a little boy spotted his parents coming to find him. He bolted from the line and charged toward them, Sunday shoes echoing through the room as he breathlessly shared the news—“MommyDaddy! MommyDaddy! MommyDaddy! Baby Jesus is REAL!”

That little boy gave me my Christmas moment. It wasn’t December 25. It wasn’t what was in a magazine. It wasn’t what I did that made it Christmas. It was the gift of a child in a moment of insight telling news too good to wait: God is with us! Since then, instead of waiting for a moment of Christmas that I make happen, I watch for signs of what God has made happen at Christmas. And I’ve seen them again and again: earnest 8th graders processing in the yearly pageant, a gift no one else would have thought to give, a relationship healed, a neighbor’s effort building a beautiful creche outside her first home. Advent always brings a moment when I know Christmas has come for me. I don’t know when Christmas will come most meaningfully for me this year, but I am confidently watching for the sign of Immanuel.

Prayer:
Loving God, how marvelous it is that you want to be with us where we are! Forgive us for thinking we can improve on your gift to us. Thank you for the signs of Christmas that can only come from you- unfailing love, grace, and salvation. May our celebrations be signs of your presence in our lives, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.