We have two Christmases.

We have the one about Santa, gifts, Frank Sinatra & Nat King Cole, snow, generosity, Christmas Spirit, laughter, letting other people cut in line, inviting friends over. The one in which we watch A Christmas Story for 24 hours straight and open presents in Christmas pajamas. The one in which we are packed into the car to go to Grandma’s for dinner. The one in which we dress up the house all December long for one day of festivities.

Then we have the one that comes after four weeks of waiting. The one in which we gather at night and again in the morning to worship. The one in which we mark twelve days of joyous celebration that GOD is with us–that we are not doing life alone. The one in which we gather around hymns that bring tears to our eyes and warmth in our souls. The one which culminates with the celebration of the church’s greatest and oldest feast: Epiphany.

I love them both.

It isn’t just that I am drawn to the former and should love the latter. It is that Christmas is about more than giving. And the season is about more than a day. And for the first time in my life, I actually feel as if that were true.

The Letdown

I have always felt a Christmas letdown. An embarrassing letdown, actually. The worst came more than twenty years ago.

The only thing I wanted was a Nintendo Entertainment System.  I asked for nothing else. Sitting under the tree was the biggest present I had ever seen. Wrapped, I examined it. It was about the right size, but its shape wasn’t quite right. Still, I convinced myself that it was The Precious I sought.

Tearing open the paper Christmas morning, my heart sunk at the wrappings’ contents. It was a model space shuttle.

Perhaps the greatest gift my father ever gave me as a preteen boy, the gift of a project that we could do together. And I hated it. I hated it so much. Not for what he gave me, but for what he didn’t.

We opened the box and we examined the contents, I reluctantly. Later he tried a couple of times to start building this model–a thing that any preteen boy should love–and a preteen version of my Dad would certainly have loved–but to no avail. It sat, neglected in the basement. Then one day it was gone.

Christmas lets out my most selfish, evil self. I am petty and competitive. I want to “win” by giving the best gifts–it’s as if they wrote this episode of The Michael J Fox Show for me–but I get furious when the gifts I receive aren’t as good.

I need to be reined in. I need for us to give few gifts of small value. I don’t like the monster Christmas turns me into.

But the religious Christmas is different. It is about the insignificance of gifts and the power of GOD that comes in joy and suffering. It isn’t about happy only, but sorrow. It is the very humanity we take for granted that empowers the season of Christmas.

The idiot me gave up on a space shuttle because of what it wasn’t. The new me relishes every project I do with my father–even getting a new cell phone for Mom or setting up her iPad. Each moment with him isn’t an attempt to rectify the past but to build a future.

I am thankful for these past eleven days of Christmas–days spent worrying and celebrating and driving and watching and eating and preparing and unwrapping and giving and hoping and laughing and provoking and being. I have loved these days because they haven’t all been happy or full of joy or productive or even restful. This has been the least restful vacation I’ve ever taken. But it has been human. It has been true Christmas. And I wish this for each of you.

Merry Christmas to you, my friends, family, and dearest loved ones. I hope that the joy of living be with you into the next season and beyond.