(COVID) Christmastime is here

Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash

I’m writing this two days before Christmas 2023.

Yesterday, we found out that my son, Daniel, has more than a cold; he has COVID. He’ll get over it. Our plans for Christmas, however, will not.

This Christmas was never going to be “normal” like the Christmases in our memories. For my wife, it is the third Christmas since her dad died. For me, it is the second without my dad and the first without my grandmama.

We already knew that my wife’s sister and her family would not make it to town for Christmas Day this year as they did in the past.

Still, this Christmas seemed to be setting up for feeling kind of normal.

Well, not now.

We dodged COVID in 2020, 2021, and 2022. We were overdue.

Last night, I took a walk after dark. The folks in our neighborhood go all out to decorate their homes for Christmas. It seems like every house has Christmas lights on its outside and a Christmas tree in its front window. A chore like walking the dog at night becomes something like a dream.

I passed several houses where people were arriving for Christmas parties and family get-togethers. I heard children laughing and shouting. I smelled smoke from crackling fireplaces. It was like a scene from Dickens.

I felt lonely and sad.

Then I thought: “What is a ‘normal’ Christmas, anyway?”

As I walked on through the night, I thought about two things that are true.

First, I am unlikely to ever have a “normal” Christmas again. That is because “normal” is a word that gets its definition from my memory. And my memory is nostalgic for people and places that are long gone. Never again will I celebrate Christmas with my dad. Never again will I celebrate Christmas as the father of a small child who doesn’t act like a teenager. Never again will I celebrate Christmas as a young man who can eat however much of whatever without a bottle of TUMS.

If “normal” is nostalgia, then I have to give up ever having another “normal” Christmas again. I can’t conjure the past. It happened. It was good. I am thankful. It is over. A moment for grief and then onward and upward.

Second, the first family of Christmas was homeless, hungry, and poor. Can you imagine being “groaning pregnant” and traveling 90 miles by donkey? Can you imagine arriving at your destination only to find no private room with a bed? Can you imagine going into labor and giving birth in a barn? Can you imagine how miserable you would be on that first Christmas?

Yet the birth of that baby brought great joy to those who knew about it.

My little family may be shut up in our home this Christmas, but we will have plenty of goodies to eat, plenty of presents to open, plenty of TV to watch, and plenty of seasoned hard wood to feed the fire in the fireplace all day. We will have access to health care if we need it. We will be able to visit with our family and friends over our computers or phones. And, if we feel bad, we will be able to medicate and sleep in comfortable beds in quiet rooms.

That’s more than I can say for families in Gaza or Ukraine.

That’s more than I can say for some households in my own town.

That’s *a lot * more than I can say for Jesus, Joseph, and Mary on the first Christmas.

So I will not complain about this COVID Christmas. Indeed, I will give thanks for it and treasure it. After all, if I’ve learned anything from the last three Christmases, it’s that this Christmas could be my last one. Why waste it by dwelling on everything that is not going to plan?

And I will ask God to change me this Christmas. How might a Christmas, shut in and sick, form me into the kind of person who befriends, encourages, and lifts up those who are shut in and sick all year long?

Would this not be the gift the Christ would give me (if I would accept it) this Christmas? Of all the gifts that I could open this year, I pray that my heart will be open to receive this one most of all!

Pray for all who are sick and suffering this Christmas. When God prompts you and provides opportunity, do whatever he shows you to do for them.

Give thanks for all that you do have this Christmas.

Remember that all the good that you have is a gift from the “giver of all good things.” And the best gift of all is one who was born, sojourned with us as a human being, died, rose again, and filled the universe with his spirit of love.

So whether this is a Christmas of joy or suffering, the Christ shares in it with us. Remember, he was born in a barn and died on a stake.

But he now lives in the realm of glory and joy and peace.

So, if you believe, you can be sure that the best Christmases are not in your past; they are always yet to come!

And God truly does bless us. Every one.

Merry Christmas!