Many months ago I began planning a surprise Christmas for my wife. The groundwork for this gift had actually taken several years to arrange, but only over the last half of the year could I see it coming to fruition. I frequently lay awake at night, planning for Christmas Eve, and how I would present her the surprise, and imagined her stunned reaction. I began looking for special gift boxes. I planned an evening meal for after church. This was going to be the best Christmas, ever. One we would talk about for decades to come.
Without getting into great detail, events unforseen arose that forced my hand. Circumstances in our life meant that I had to tell her about the gift several weeks before Chistmas. Broken-hearted that I would have to reveal my surprise early, I reluctantly presented her present to her one weeknight. She was indeed thrilled, but it certainly lacked the overwhelming punch it would have had on Christmas Eve.
Then she got a cold and was sick for a week. Then she got well and I got sick with the same cold for a week. Then she got the flu and was sick for two weeks. Then I got the flu and was sick for two weeks. Christmas came and went, celebrated with antihistamines, decongestants, and cough syrup. New Year's passed, and we slowly began pulling out of the viral fog that had enveloped us. Hopefully, we coughed our last coughs this weekend. Although we survived the microbial suffering, it wasn't the Christmas that I wanted for us.
Somewere in all of this planning and rehearsing and scheming I had lost sight of what Christmas was supposed to be. You would think that I would know better after fifty-three Christmases. Yes, we worshipped our Saviour Christ Jesus, and acknowledged the anniversary of His birth, but I was so focused on what I wanted to do, what I wanted to accomplish, the experience I wanted to share that when things didn't work out the way I desired, I was disappointed.
I don't imagine Joseph fantasized about dragging his very pregnant young wife from Nazareth to Jerusalem to deliver their first child, only to have to lay Him in a food trough somewhere because they couldn't get a room. (A manger is actually an open feeder for livestock, not a stable.) I am sure that as they planned early on in her pregnancy, he imagined that they would share in the birth of their child in Nazareth, surrounded by family and friends, in more comfortable surroundings. Only later did Caesar decree that a census would be taken (Luke 2:1). So the birth of Christ, the first Christmas, was not a propitious one. And how many countless others have spent Christmases in unfortunate situations?
I would have been better served to have never lost sight of the eternal blessing we have received by the gift of Jesus to us by the Father that first Christmas. There is nothing on this earth that I could possibly acquire, no treasure I could amass, no gift I could give to my wife that could come close to the gift of Christ that we remember at Christmas. Even if we spent one of our lifetimes to devise it, what could we possibly give to another that would last for eternity? When we celebrate Christmas, the package that we open is our own soul, destined for heaven forever in peace with the Maker of all good and great things.
And although I didn't get to pull off the "perfect" Christmas, my wife and I are blessed in so many ways that to feel disappointment is to be ungrateful for that perfect gift we have already received. Nothing that I could give her did not first come from the graciousness and good will of the Father. As James said in 1:17 of his epistle, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change." My Christmas gift to my wife was only possible because of the generosity of the Lord.
So we were still blessed at Christmas, and rejoice at a loving Father, the source of all perfect things, and the gift of His Son, the perfect gift. Still could have done without those viruses, though.
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