My 13-year-old son is currently studying his second year of Spanish in the 8th grade. I'm very proud of him for sticking to it, and for doing so well. I know it is difficult to learn another language. But he seems to be doing well, and I am so excited to see it in practice this upcoming summer when we head to Guatemala.
I try to pick up on things when he studies. I know that the little bits and pieces I get from him are nowhere near sufficient to have conversations with our Guatemalan friends, but I figure it can't hurt. But there was one thing that jumped right out at me recently. My son was working on some translating exercises. I don't remember what the sentence was, but it had the word mas in it, which means more. I chuckled a little bit because I thought it looked a lot like mass, a word for weight and volume. I made a correlation, and it comes to mind every time I get on a scale. Sad, I know. But I digress...
But today it meant something a bit different. My husband and I went to do some shopping during his lunch break. I found this to be especially sweet on his part because my right foot is in a fracture boot and driving is very difficult for me. He's been my driver for a few weeks now. And while we were out shopping for our younger son's birthday, I saw the toy section at our local Target. It was decorated for Christmas. It was sparkling, twinkling, and singing. How could any parent shopping with kids avoid this section? It had a magnetic pull. And then it was aisle upon aisle of toys of every shape, size, and price. Every shelf was strewn with toys and mis-match things, as if a crazy tornado had ripped through, tossing toys about. What a mess!
And that's when all of these things came together. I've been living a Christ-mess. I've been letting the shopping, the decorating, the baking, and the family events become a burden to me. I've let my life become a messy toy aisle, throwing memories and loving opportunities by the wayside. Sure, the outside twinkles brightly, but my heart... it was less than lustrous. I had let Christmas become something it was never intended to be. Where was my celebration? Where was the joy? I don't know. It was lost beneath a stack of receipts, cast into a pitcher of egg nog, or shoved into an ugly Christmas sweater. It was a sad, tattered mess.
But here's the thing: the word is Christmas. Christ-more. Christ more than the shopping, more than the baking, more than anything else. The birth of our savior. Jesus Christ first, foremost, and only. If my Christmas has become so cluttered with gifts, parties, spending, decorating, baking, traveling, or anything else, that it has no room for the one to whom the day really belongs, I have made it a Christ-menos, the Spanish word for less.
A Christ-less Christmas is so empty, and so pointless. It means that you spend hours decorating your house for nothing. It means you spend a ton of money, and put yourself in debt for nothing. It means you gather together for nothing. It means that all of your time and effort is completely wasted, all so that you can spend one day of the year trying to find meaning for the other 364. It's useless, it's wasteful, it's expensive, and it's pointless.
But with Christ, it means that you joyfully create memories of happy times. You gather together to fellowship, rejoice, worship, and love one another, and the Creator who made such a miraculous event worth our time and effort every year. It means you give gifts of the heart, to let someone know that you recognize the most amazing gift of all - Jesus Christ - is available those other 364 days. You hug warmer, you embrace sweeter, you love deeper. You love Christmas, not Christmess.
I encourage you to seek out the true meaning of Christmas. I encourage you to love with the same kind of jealous, fervent, powerful love that our Heavenly Father showed when he sent the world a gift it continues to "re-gift" even 2000 years later.
Merry Christmas season, my friends.
