A Mature Christmas

Does it feel like Christmas has lost some of its magic? It does to me. The air used to feel different, every day special and seasonal. Now the December days are boxes to be checked off, desperately hoping the to-do list ends before the 25th. When I have the time to reflect, breathing in a choral carol as I gaze upon our lit but ornament-less tree, my thoughts inevitably turn to the lack of peace on earth, “for hate is strong and mocks the song.

While it’s possible that Christmas has grown more commercial, complicated, and busy since my childhood--so many other things have--another possible truth is certainly at play: the magic of Christmas is for children.

As an adult, you realize how much of the magic is designed for children. Practically speaking, adults are the ones making the magic happen. We see behind the scenes: the traffic, the lines, the dwindling bank accounts, the cooking, the wrapping, the calories…

And we see beyond the scenes: the relational tension, the grief, the poverty, the pain, the famine, the violence, the anger, the addiction, the loneliness, the corruption, the injustice. It is, in fact, not a holly, jolly Christmas.

I recently attended my first active shooter training; there is something about being told, “You can and will defend yourself with violence if you must,” that forces you to accept how far man has fallen. Seeing dead animals on the road overwhelms me; they didn’t deserve it, but in this fallen world, death is unfair and inevitable. I will also start crying if I think too long about bird species that have gone extinct, knowing that at some point, one last bird sang a song that was never returned. Fallen, fallen, fallen.

It is hard to be an adult and embrace the magic of Christmas as a child. I would like to posit that it’s impossible. Childhood Christmas magic is, well, magical, but it is also childish. As it should be. It flicks away the troubles and fallen-ness, choosing instead the dance of the sugar plum fairy. As it should do.

What’s so great about Christmas as an adult? What is the “meat” of Christmas, compared to the "milk" of a child? I would like to propose it is that “the world prayed the same prayer and God was listening.”

The world prayed the same prayer. Creation groans! We are fallen. Fallen. Fallen.

Christmas is about the fallen-ness. It does not look away from the death, the destruction, the complete and out-of-control damage. The way we hurt each other and ourselves and everyone else just for good measure. A world that is “torn all apart.”

The world prayed the same prayer, and God was listening.

I think it is okay, as an adult, to forego the Christmas magic. Look instead for the Christmas redemption from the fallen-ness. As an adult, you seek a miracle instead of magic: “How can it be that a stable so small / could somehow contain enough room for us all?” That is the miracle. 

My dear adults: do not grieve because you can no longer access the Christmas magic of your childhood. It is your awareness of the fallen world that allows you to rejoice in the truth, that “this holy tide of Christmas all other doth deface.”

I have nothing against the whimsy that is a child’s Christmas. But I also want to make space for a mature Christmas that sees the fallen world as it is…and welcomes “a new and glorious morn.”

A playlist of all songs quoted here, if you should desire. These have been my favs this Christmas season.