There’s no such thing as the perfect Christmas. Growing up, the anticipation of Christmas was almost overwhelmingly exciting. The stores are playing music, windows of shops and restaurants are filled with red and green decorations, fake snow, and Santa Claus, and time with family is longer and richer. Movies, gifts, shopping, reading, and parties are but a fraction of what the Christmas season was like growing up. The magic felt real, even though it was simply good advertisement that works on the emotional side of consumers. In my few years of being able to say, “as an adult…”, I have never felt this reality so strong as this year. As an adult I see and know: there’s no such thing as the perfect Christmas.
As I sit in the Istanbul airport, alone, the day after Christmas I realize this year there wasn’t much anticipation. At least not the kind of anticipation I was fed as a child. Is it because I am an expat, celebrating Christmas away from my passport country? More than that, this year, celebrating not even in my residency visa country? This world is not my home. That rings true this year. The lack of anticipation this year meant the ‘post-Christmas blues’, if you will, were lacking too.
Instead, it was an abnormal, but maybe more realistic, month leading up to celebrating Christ’s birth. A chapter a day in Luke. Traveling to two different countries. Overwhelmed in metros and by tall buildings because I live in Iraq. Meeting new people and catching up with others. Nights of little sleep, and nights of lots of sleep. Hard decisions. Days of begging God for grace. So many delicious meals shared with special people. A hotel and an AirBnb. Voice texts to friends back in Iraq. Reading in coffee shops. Christmas cortados and opening gifts. Naps. Reading Luke 2 on Christmas and reflecting that there’s no such thing as the perfect Christmas.
In all the non-anticipation, it got me anticipating. Anticipating Christ’s return. This season could be titled “Already and Not Yet”. The kingdom is here but Christ hasn’t returned. He is reigning but the enemy is still seeking to kill, steal, and destroy. The Spirit lives in me to make me more like Christ, yet I still sin. The not yet is clear in the brokenness of this world; but the not yet is also exciting. What hope we have as those in Christ!
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18