Merry Christmas 2020

It’s crazy to think that last year at this time we were all gathering with friends and families blissfully unaware of what was about to come our way in 2020. If you would have told me then what was going to go down in March, I would have thought you were crazy. But here we are, closing in on almost an entire year of Covid, Social Distance, and Stay Home Stay safe being everyday buzzwords heard through muffled masks.

It doesn’t seem real or right but here it is our reality. Last year I wrote about never taking for granted the gift of normalcy. Boy is that true now more than ever. 

I’ve felt a lot of things before on Christmas. All sorts of emotions. This Christmas is quite the mixed bag. I’m so excited that Otto is so into Christmas. Any minute he’s going to wake up and we get to run downstairs and watch his eyes light up that Santa had indeed visited.

I don’t know how to accurately speak to this without sounding like it consumes me. This holiday season has been a really hard for me. I’m an extremely emotional person and sentimental at that. I hold on to memories pretty vividly and sometimes that can lead to my demise. I don’t forget a lot of things that I wish I just could. I think this year has been such a struggle because everything feels amplified. Political turmoil, Covid, quarantine, and feeling really very alone and on the defense have brought to the surface a lot of hurt from the past. This year having a child with potentially high risk conditions has kept me on edge for most of 2020. It’s a very isolating and an exhausting mindset. Pair that with the reminder of the loss of our first pregnancy the day after Christmas and it’s just all coming at me really fast.

Typically at Christmas the routine, the traditions, the candle light services are what keep my spirit high and this year has been striped of that leaving behind the bare essentials.

And that is when it hit me. Isn’t that what Christmas is? It’s not about the big parties, the gifts, the caroling, the food. It’s about the birth of Jesus and what that means to us. It’s like that moment in the story of The Grinch when his epiphany comes to him as he’s sitting on a pile of stolen gifts.

Ann Voskamp is one of my favorite Christian writers and she has a way with words that I have sought out during some of the darkest times in my life.  She posted on Instagram a few days ago, 

“I will simply become a place for God today. There is no need to produce or perform or perfect – simply become a place for God. Christmas is conceived in my world when I simply receive it – however Christ and His will comes to me. The miscarriage of Christmas begins when anxieties crowd out the space within simply to carry Christ.” – Ann Voskamp

So that will be my goal today. Not to perfect, not to perform but to make way in my heart and mind for the love of Jesus and his will.

It’s my sincerest wish that you all have a lovely, safe and hope filled Christmas today. Wherever you are and whatever that looks like. Merry Christmas friends. I’m glad you’re here.