‘If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world’ – C.S. Lewis
Pandemic notwithstanding, I suppose it was a good Christmas. I savored special moments with family, soaked myself in the Christmas story, and otherwise set my mind and heart on the true meaning of the season. I did many of the things I love to do each year: I decorated the tree, set up and played with the trains, listened to Linus tell Luke’s story, played our family’s version of Elf on the shelf, watched and read A Christmas Carol. Our church celebrations were different but meaningful. Although there were some traditions we had to skip this year, I managed to check off all the important boxes. All in all, I have nothing to complain about this Christmas.
And so it was with a sense of discouragement that I found myself, the day after Christmas, feeling down. I felt as if I had missed something. This feeling first manifested itself in the realization that there were certain songs I hadn’t heard this year (I blamed this on Alexa; I have this awesome Christmas playlist, but when I tell her to shuffle the songs, she keeps playing the same dad gum songs over and over). So I deliberately spent some time listening to the forgotten songs. Oddly enough, this did nothing for my mood. It felt too late, and I was overwhelmed with the sense that I had, once again, missed Christmas.
I say once again because, truth be told, I feel this way every year. Every December 26th, I get the post-Christmas blues. Maybe it’s the letdown. At some point in November (Okay, October, I’m one of those people) I start to get excited about Christmas. The season holds forth great promise, and I really try to fulfill it. Some years I come close. I get at least an epiphany or two. Sometimes I get close enough to the story that it feels as if I can reach out and touch the face of God. And sometimes, glory of glories, I’ve felt God reach out and touch me. But then, somehow, on December 26th, it feels as if its over. I’m not sure why I feel this way. Christmas is never truly over. But the realization that the official season has come and gone gets me every time.
The ghosts of Christmas pasts inevitably play a role in the letdown. I have this image of ‘the perfect Christmas’ in my mind, one that I supposedly experienced once upon a time. The truth is that this ‘perfect Christmas’ is an amalgam, a highlight reel if you will, of my now 53 Christmas pasts. All the best moods, moments, family times, and spiritual experiences rolled into one super memory of a marvelous Christmas. It’s a nice Christmas to remember, but it is of course pure fantasy. I’ve never experienced a single Christmas that matches the collective one in my imagination. No wonder I feel let down every year. How can reality match the dream world?
I could chalk it all up to that then, this post-Christmas blues. But as I forced Alexa to play those forgotten songs and pondered the feelings they inspired this past Saturday, I realized that there is more involved than the letdown. I realized that this feeling of having missed Christmas is inevitable. Indeed, it’s necessary. Christmas is the story of God becoming man, the Starkindler born beneath the stars, the Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth casting off his prerogatives and privileges that he might renew the whole of His Creation. It is a story too vast for capture. It is too grand and glorious for the likes of me, or any of us, to fully experience in a single year, or even in a lifetime of Christmases. The collective fantasies of a 1000 Christmases couldn’t come close to apprehending the wonder and majesty of this story.
And so, this year, after many December 26ths worth of missed Christmases, I’ve accepted something. This feeling of Christmas missed is as it should be. It serves a purpose. I am not meant to feel satisfied at Christmas. I am meant to feel empty. I am meant to experience a deep sense of unfulfilled longing – an unfulfilled longing for another world.
For one day, at the Final Advent, there will be another world. It will come to me, or I to it, in one of two ways. Either I will die and enter the world of God’s eternity, or Jesus will come during my lifetime and bring God’s eternity to me. Then, and only then, will I be satisfied. Then, and only then, will my elusive longings be sated. Then, and only then, will I finally plumb the depths of Christmas and all that it means.
Until then, well, I guess I will experience this missing of Christmas every December 26th for the rest of my life. And that is fine with me, for it will keep me longing for the day when it will finally be, and truly feel like, Christmas forever.
Under Christ’s Mercy,
Brent