Posted in Making Memories

I’m sorry I have been gone so long.  Frankly, I honestly didn’t think anybody really wanted to hear me rant about a whole slew of nonsense and depression that has been going on in my life; Christmas being the most recent but there has been a list too long to repeat.  Thankfully, Christmas is on the home stretch and it can’t come a minute too soon. 

Honestly, after last year I truly thought, “How can Christmas get any worse??”  The funny thing is that things aren’t worse --- I’m just too worn out to make it better.  It is hard to pick up the pieces when you shoot your own self in the foot.  I’m sure you would like an explanation to that one; unfortunately it is months, and days of complaining that I’m sure nobody wants to hear at least not on the day before Christmas Eve, so I will spare you the “holiday cheer” and try to move on.

What is really on my mind 2 days before Christmas (and really only one day for me because my outlaws celebrate on Christmas Eve) is do you really think it is all what it is cracked up to be?  Now don’t get me wrong, I grew up in the most secular, materialistic, non-Christ believing family that one could be in.  Christmas was a blast - I’m guessing because I was the kid but I fell in love with Rudolph and Santa and all the rest.  If it weren’t for the families of friends I’m not sure that I would know what the holiday was really supposed to stand for because in my family it stood for fighting, arguing, staying up ALL night on Christmas Eve and then going to grandma’s without daddy.  I was completely heart broken when I found out the truth about the red man and I was shocked beyond belief that the whole world could go along with the joke that I felt was played on ME!  I just knew that I didn’t want that for my family or my boys.  But do old habits die hard or am I just a gluten for punishment?  It seems that the harder I work at trying to achieve the exact opposite of what I had growing up -- that is exactly what I have ended up with.  Okay not exactly, dh goes to grandma’s but I refuse to go to the outlaws without him because it is just a hanging for me without him however the fighting, the arguing and staying up for days straight hasn’t gone away.  I don’t know.  I can’t help but feel that the whole holiday is still the same as it ever was because it isn’t the truth either. 

What I mean is that as Christians we try to celebrate Christmas day as the birth of Christ but any good Berean who has studied the scriptures will come to the same conclusion that I have.  It will never be a “joyous” occasion because The Joy wasn’t born now -- some sun god was or some other “self serving wish I could be the deity” of a man who wants us to believe that we are celebrating Christ.  It is the plain truth and so much of what we do (that wreck havoc on our sleep and make us poor women carry the brunt of the load and make us absolutely Christmas crazy) is just more of the same pagan worship.  Truly I think there is only one force that is behind all that and I honestly don’t know even ONE person who is “enjoying” this season sans my kids who are bickering like never before. 

Okay so then what do we do?  I mean how does this “secular it isn’t Christmas if it isn’t a REAL traditional tree” gal celebrate or do you?  Do you ignore it?  How can you ignore that it is all pagan based?  Do you smash all your Christmas stash to bits and hide in a cave?  And gee with the retail market already putting Valentines junk on the shelves I guess I would have to live in that cave starting early October!   I’m so torn because I LOVE Christmas or at least the idea of Christmas but I have yet to have THE Christmas that is perfect in my head.  I’m starting to think it won’t ever happen because it wasn’t ever meant to happen because this holiday isn’t really a Holy day that was ordained by G-d.  Or was it?  Some believe that Jesus’ birthday was during Sukkoth which makes perfect sense to me so does one celebrate His birth then?  And it never made sense to me why one would give presents to each other on Christmas if it was somebody else’s birthday.  Shouldn’t the gifts go to G-d if it is His birthday?  My sister doesn’t let a birthday go by that she doesn’t remind me of the year that my dad gave me a globe on HER birthday -- man was she miffed.  My problem is that I can’t let go of the idea of celebrating Christmas when the world thinks it is celebrating “something” now.  And golly, couldn’t someone have told me this BEFORE I had had 11 years with my children celebrating all this pagan stuff that they certainly won’t be happy to give up?  It would have been so much easier to tell them the truth from the beginning; at least we did that with dear ole’ Saint Nick and they don’t seem to be bothered by not having him in their lives although the relatives do.  So then what do we do?  How does one tell folks thank you but we don’t exchange presents any more and please stop sending me a Christmas card because we don’t believe that December 25^th is Jesus’ birthday (never mind the lynching we got for telling our children the truth about Santa Claus).

So to say that this season has been full of stress is such an understatement.  Torn to shreds and ripped up is more like it and this debate is only the tip of the iceberg that we have been going through.  I can’t help but feel that the “lovely holiday behavior” that has been exhibited around me (and through me) is caused by one thing and one thing only -- the darkness of principalities -- because none of this is of G-d no matter how much you try to Christianize it.  And yes, I have tried to bring Jesus into the reason for the season year after year but I guess it was when I watched a TV program for Hanukah trying to turn a Christmas tree into a Hanukah bush (which most Jewish believers seem to greatly shun) that is when I realized that what I was trying to do was no different.  Can one really take secular objects and turn them into items that worship the L-rd like lights, decorated trees and Christmas cards?  I think those object lessons that we use to understand what we are celebrating are good for teaching the story but somehow I think they miss the mark especially if the mark was born back in September and I get the feeling that if He would have wanted us to celebrate His birth He would of said do this in remembrance of My birth and it would have been listed in the Old Testament as one of the Holy days we were to celebrate.  Which also leads me to believe that He never wanted us to worship a baby, but to bow down to a King and not just any King but THE L-rd of L-rd’s and the King of Kings.  I don’t know where I will go with this or how to solve this but I do know G-d has opened my eyes and it feels like the world lying to me all over again.  How to fix it I haven’t a clue.

© Copyright 2008 Jacque Ward http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/wacque/