Preparation Christmas

I love all of the trappings of Christmas as much as the next guy: the decorations and lights, the parties, families coming together to gently abuse one another.  But this doesn’t all just happen. It takes preparation. Lots of preparation. 

I have to admit that for the past few years I’ve tried to skip some of the preparation steps.  Why take down a perfectly set up Christmas tree when you will need to set it up again next year?  It seems that this year the lack of preparation began to bite back.  Either my fake tree grew in the basement over the summer or my stairwell shrunk.  After a special length of time jamming my tree up the stairwell it took some time to make my fake tree look real again.  (It’s was so obvious that branches don’t really grow that way in real life).  I take small comfort in my lazy preparation that a friend of mine is even lazier.  He actually shrink-wraps his tree with the ornaments still on it.  His preparation involves a scissors in one hand and a cold beer in the other.  Brilliant. 

Then there are the people who over-prepare.  Goodness, you would think that none of them have ever paid an electric bill before with all the lights they string, let alone figure out where to store an 8 foot plastic Santa with his 50 reindeer surrounding a plastic manger containing a glowing, blond haired Jesus.  Shrink-wrap? Perhaps they just recycle their decorations and start fresh next year.  I actually like all the hubbub and decorations, but I would like to know why they are preparing.  What are they anticipating?  Does the preparation conjure up a certain level of nostalgia or is it centered on something more enduring and real?

As I reflect on the way that I prepare my heart to be a place where God can dwell I’m convicted by two things: 1) I too often take shortcuts and expect the same power and presence of God in my life; 2) I can focus so much on the preparation that I loose sight of the relationship that the preparation serves. 

I pray that in this season you establish consistent and healthy patterns of walking in His presence, not being lazy or skipping “steps,” and not loosing sight of the reason for our preparation – a saving and joy-filled relationship with the baby King in the manger.  The real one.