I’m sitting here savoring the last bite of my velvety smooth cinnamon roll (delicious rolls a result of the pioneer woman’s easy to follow recipe rather than any of my own baking skillz). As I lick the butter and powdered sugar frosting off my fingers, I can’t help but be thankful it isn’t this time last week. While I usually savor the last few days before Christmas, this year I plumb wished them away.
Right after Thanksgiving, my good man came down with shingles. Which, it seems, is no garden picnic. Then our son James woke up on the first day of Christmas break with the flu. The next day, our daughter caught a stomach bug, and our other son caught it 2 days later. And then last Friday, James, David and myself all came down with the stomach bug at once.
Ohmygosh, we were one sorry lot.
Thankfully the bug was a 24 hour thing, so by Christmas Eve all 5 of us actually felt like humans again. Turns out it ain’t no big thing I didn’t get much Christmas baking done as our appetites have been slow to embrace any kind of rich food–with the exception of the aforementioned cinnamon rolls.
And really, that’s been the name of the game this Christmas: slow. While I hated trading illnesses, I’ve loved our relaxed pace this Christmas break. After the busiest fall our family has ever had, we are letting Christmas linger within the slower pace. So our tree will stay up, maybe till Epiphany. For the time being, we’ll keep reading our Advent books. We might continue some “before Christmas” traditions after Christmas, like baking cinnamon rolls. Or maybe not.
In the words of my daddy, “We’ll just see what we feel like.” No have-to’s, just want-to’s.
And we’ll remember Christmas proves that even though weary hearts travel roads with
cold, dark nights
painful laboring
dreadful conditions
doors slammed in faces
harmful threats
death and loss
there is the promise of
God’s presence like never before
ordinary people privy to extraordinary miracles
fears removed
hopes met
words kept
relationships restored
because with God all things are possible–even in your situation, with your people, for your own heart.
Whatever sorrow, joy, disappointment or excitement your Christmas and New Year holds, may you know the One who writes stories in stars loves you wildly. May you know His Son, Christ Jesus, came to end your story well.
May you and I make room for Him to enter in and linger.
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