'Tis the Season

Now that Halloween is over Thanksgiving is soon here, businesses and retail companies are free to fill our minds and neuroses with as much Christmas season frenzy as they can.  Anyone who has a chance to make money from consumers is marketing the heck out of whatever they’re selling. 

Sometimes all they’re selling is the idea of a gift.  Make this Christmas the one they’ll remember.  If you buy this second you’ll get 80 percent off.  This offer will not last.  Don’t be a chump.

This is enough to make my heart beat faster and for me to pull the covers over my head and concede my defeat to the holiday season. 

Just pass me by, already.  I can’t keep up.

Last year I confided to my husband that I really don’t enjoy the holiday season.  He responded with shock and awe.  He relishes frenzy and chaos, infinite options, shopping to shop and deals, deals, deals.  He can’t understand that all I want for Christmas is PEACE.

He kicked into action by ramping up his helpfulness with shopping, the kids, the house.  It helps, but it doesn’t stop the constant buzz of external pressure to get out there, take Christmas by the horns, and make it the best one yet by doing and buying everything.

I have to say in past years I haven’t been very good about remembering the reason for the season.  I allow the commercialization to get to me.  I make the season a chore because I am so grumpy about it.  I resist what Christmas has become, but I have had a hard time doing anything about it.

This year, I’ve decided to pray.  Pray when the season gets away from me, pray when I feel like I’m drowning, pray when things get a little too loud and fast and annoying and I focus on those things that have nothing to do with what’s going on in my heart.

And let me tell you, I have never prayed so often during a day than I have the past couple of weeks since those Christmas commercials started.

But it’s working.  Jesus has talked me down from the wall every time, without fail.  He reminds me in times when the blood rushes through my ears after a particular flood of anxiety that he is there.  And he causes tears to well in my eyes when he quietly says, “It’s my life you are celebrating.  Don’t forget that.”

I may not be able to stop the onslaught of all things Christmas, but then again, I don’t have to.  All I have to do is look away from the chaos and into the one who makes everything right.

And there is the peace.

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But as for me, I will sing about your power.  Each morning I will sing with joy about your unfailing love. For you have been my refuge, a place of safety when I am in distress.  O my Strength, to you I sing praises, for you, O God, are my refuge, the God who shows me unfailing love. Psalm 59:16-17 (NLT)