CHRISTMAS SPIRIT(S)

I’ve been fighting Christmas – feeling a little Bah Humbug. I’ve not been miserly, exactly, but my eyes have been looking at things through some dark shades. I’ve been peering through glasses the opposite of rose-coloured. I’ve been a little jaded.

I watched a mountain of shoe boxes for Samaritan’s Purse loaded up onto a truck, and I choked up. Tears stung my eyes and I thought, Good God in heaven, please forgive us. We do not know what we are doing. Do children in jungles really need bouncy balls? Do they really need their eyes to be opened to just exactly how much they don’t have? Do we really want to spread our gluttonous, consumerist, disposable spirit to them? Can we please just stop trying to save everybody, and learn a little respect?

But then a funny thing happened. My new neighbour with a new baby – a woman I have never actually spoken to – dropped off a little Martha Stewart Christmas bundle on my doorstep. My new neighbour who I don’t go out of my way to speak to because she never smiled when I waved at her that one time; my new neighbour who is always annoyed when my husband parks on the street in front of her house because we have such a big driveway, and she doesn’t seem to understand that a long, narrow driveway is not necessarily that awesome when you have two vehicles and two people that leave the house at different times. That neighbour. She left us a gift. I unwrapped it, feeling more than a little embarrassed by her generosity, and I smiled. I stared at it, and I marvelled. I said out loud, Wow, how great is that? That is amazing. I did not deserve this.

And just like that, I caught it. The Christmas Spirit. How blessed it is to receive. How blessed it is to receive something you did not ask for, you did not expect, you totally did not deserve.

Spirit changes everything. It makes the snowfall whiter and brighter, it makes the music swell inside you, it makes you want to smile and say hello neighbour and hold the door open for strangers. It makes you want to give very thoughtfully, with care and attention and generosity. It makes you see everything that you have with whole new eyes, and it makes you want to share it. You really cannot do Christmas without Spirit.

And so I am sitting here saying a prayer for a beautiful child – the child of a stranger far away, whom I have never seen or met – and I am praying that child finds joy in their shoe box. I bless all the bouncy balls and the jump ropes and the pencils and the toothbrushes, and I pray that they are all received with joy. I pray that each child finds some small thing inside their box that makes them smile and say out loud, Wow, how great is that? That is amazing. I did not deserve this. I pray that they will feel how very blessed it is to receive. I pray that the Spirit will fill them, giving them eyes to see their own abundance, and that they, too, will want to pass it on.