I still can’t quite believe it’s over.  All that thought and time and energy and money put into one of the most wonderful days of every year, and now . . . it’s already two days past Christmas.  The good news, of course, is that Christmas is really just the beginning of the celebration.  It’s the day Jesus was born – the day God became man so we could begin to grasp the depth of his love for us.  The rest of his short life was equally as amazing and, don’t worry, there are even more donkeys and angels.  YAY!

Christmas this year was a whirlwind for me, as I imagine it might have been for many of you.  There were family gatherings and parties mixed in with all the decorating, shopping, wrapping, and cooking in a way that makes me wonder exactly where the month of December went.  Honestly, I think I spent most of it trying to come up with elf tricks. 

And now that Christmas Day has come and gone, and I’ve had a full day to reflect on the most magical time of the year . . . I’ve come up with two moments that defined my holiday season. 

The first came on Christmas Eve, smack in the middle of a beautiful candlelight service.  My nine-year-old was sitting to my left, my dad on the right.  Everyone was dressed up and the air was full of excitement and the joy could clearly be heard in the voices of the congregation, our voices lifted to the heavens in praise of the One who came to save.  My eyes filled with tears, as they often seem to do when thousands of people are singing together about Jesus, and I could actually feel the magic of Christmas flow through me.  And then, my precious son, dressed in his holiday best and bubbling over with anticipation about the hours ahead, leaned over to me, and with wide eyes and a very serious demeanor, asked the one question I’ve happily avoided for all of his nine Christmases so far.

“Mom, what exactly is a virgin anyway?”

I probably shouldn’t cuss on a blog about Jesus, but man, I sure wanted to at that moment.  In church.  On Christmas Eve.  

Not to worry.  I simply told my son we’d talk about it later.  The problem, of course, is that now it IS later, and because my son has the best memory of anyone I know, I feel quite certain the chat I’ve never wanted to have is going to happen any minute now.  Awesome.  Next Christmas, he’ll probably lean over and want to know exactly what those “band-aids for Mommies” are that sit in a box on the back of the potty for a few days every month, and I’ll be trying to figure out how to explain tampons while everyone else is belting out Joy to the World.

The second monumental moment of Christmas 2012 occurred at precisely 12:07 on Christmas Day.  The reason I know the exact time of this disturbing event?  It was the time on the clock when all of my Christmas decorations, minus the tree, were officially down and packed into tubs in the storage room, not to be seen again until next December.  An entire year of therapy and THAT’S how much my OCD has improved?  You’ve got to be kidding. I’d like to blame my insanity on the fact that we were leaving the house at 12:30 and not planning to return for over a week.  But really, I’m not sure that fact offers much of an excuse.  The scariest part of the whole deal is the way I felt when I looked at the clock at seven minutes past noon and realized the only thing left to do to “undecorate” was to take down the tree (which won’t happen until after our trip). 

I was ecstatic. 

And that, my friends, is why I need Christmas.  Because despite all my efforts . . . despite all my plans and intentions and prayers and dollars spent trying to work through my mess . . . I need Jesus. I will always need Jesus.   

And He is here.

Emmanuel.

God with us. 

May he bring peace into your lives as 2012 comes to a close, and my he bring peace into mine as well.  The kind of peace that settles my heart when I know I'm on the cusp of an important conversation.  The kind of peace that allows me to find calm in the midst of clutter.  The kind of peace only the Prince of Peace can offer.    

Christmas lists can be rather telling, don’t ya think?

Confession: Last December, I had to seek counseling over my son’s Christmas list. Yes, my friends, a letter written by a seven year old beginning with the words “Dear Santa” sent me to therapy.

Let me explain.

I am a bubble mom. Hey, I’m a control freak and control freaks like to keep their kids in
bubbles . . . teeny, tiny, itsy, bitsy, small ones. I discovered not long after becoming a mother that I had very clear visions regarding what I did and did not want to expose my children to, and there were a LOT of things on the “no” list.

To give you an example of how hard-core my list was, I will admit to nursing Charlie while watching HGTV on mute. Why was the TV on mute, you ask?  Because I couldn’t stand the thought of exposing my newborn baby to anything that might be even the slightest bit negative, and they might use such appalling words as “hate” or “sexy” on HGTV.  (They do, you know, which is why I still don’t allow my kids to watch Divine Design, even though I think Candice Olsen hung the moon, and when I win the lottery and feed as many starving kids as possible, I will then hire her to redecorate my entire life.)

I’m still terrified of the television when it comes to my children. Now that Charlie is older, he wants to watch sporting events with his daddy. Sure, golf is fairly clean, but I have to make sure Adam is armed with the remote control ready to change the channel as soon as any commercials come on. I simply don’t have the inclination to explain why half-naked women show up on all beer commercials and I definitely don’t want to explain what Viagra is all about.

Movies make me nervous too. Although there are guidelines for determining the rating of movies, I’m not so sure they make sense. We even stayed away from the G rated Disney movies until last January, when it snowed so much the kids were out of school for a week and we finally tired of sledding down our driveway. I know they’re classics, but again, the language isn’t always appropriate and the themes irritate me. I mean seriously, what did Walt Disney have against mothers anyway?

Music is yet another issue for bubble moms like myself. There is nothing great out there for school age children. My kids loved Bible songs and the baby and toddler CD’s when they were young, but once they started school, they outgrew “The Wheels on the Bus,” and there just isn’t a next step. I love music with a great beat as much as the next girl, but I don’t need The Black-Eyed Peas on my five-year-old's play list.

My extreme sheltering extends beyond television, movies, and music. Until last Christmas, we didn’t have any toys with weapons in our house. In fact, I never used the word ‘gun’ in front of my children, along with many other words like ‘kill’, ‘die’, or ‘dead.’ I realize my kids will one day learn our world has the potential to be a violent place, but I wanted to put that day off for as long as possible. So, for years, when my daughter saw a beetle on the ground that wasn’t moving, I told her it was simply taking a little snooze on the sidewalk. And when well-meaning family members bought Star Wars Lego sets for my son because they thought I was going overboard with my desire to protect my children’s innocence, I confiscated the weapons in the blink of an eye and threw them immediately into the trash.

Like I said . . . hard-core. I formed a bubble around my children and tired to keep it intact for many years. Of course, every bubble pops eventually, and the one I created around Charlie and Libby finally did. In fact, it probably popped years earlier, but I was too busy making sure my kids still thought the ‘F’ word had to do with releasing bodily gas to realize it. When I saw Charlie’s Christmas list last December, however, I knew my bubble had burst.

My seven-year-old son asked Santa Claus to bring him a Nerf gun, a bow and arrow, and a pocketknife for Christmas.

Every single item on his list was a weapon.
Well, this bubble mom panicked. I called the counselor at Charlie's school and requested an emergency meeting while visions of sociopaths danced in my head.

The amazing school counselor reassured me that my son was not on his way to becoming a dangerous criminal. He was just a little boy who wanted to play like a little boy with toys made specifically for, yep, you got it . . . little boys. It made sense when a trained professional explained it that way, so I went with it, and after my counseling session, Santa delivered in a BIG way. He brought Charlie a nerf gun and a bow and arrow for Christmas. TWO weapons. Of course, in typical fashion, Charlie rarely plays with either of them, but they sit in his closet, reminding me that there is no way I will always be able to protect my children. They will hear things I don’t want them to hear. They will see things I don’t want them to see. They will learn things I don’t want them to learn. All I can do is try to keep the lines of communication open and pray for God’s protection over my children. And I have to trust that the bubble I had around Charlie and Libby for so many years gave them just enough sheltering to allow them to go out into the world and find the good in it.

This year, Charlie’s Christmas list looks like this:
1. Play Station
2. Backpack (it doesn’t matter which color)
3. Another Nerf Gun
4. Surprises!!!

Number two is my favorite. Only a male could be that agreeable. Man, I love that kid. And I'm so glad I won't need any therapy this year.

Merry Christmas my friends! May God richly bless you this holiday weekend and always!