So This is Christmas

As I raced to the emergency room at 2:00 a.m. on a Monday morning with an extremely feverish little boy, the first song that came on the radio said, "So this is Christmas. And what have you done?"

I thought to myself in that frantic moment, "What have I done?"

I mean, I've done the things. We decked the halls. I bought the gifts and wrapped them. I did two Christmas musicals at church. I went to see Santa with Evan's class. I addressed and mailed Christmas cards. (Okay, I didn't order enough Christmas cards, so they went out in shifts this year. Sorry, world. I'm just trying to elongate your Christmas joy.) I have watched no less than 1,000 hours of Hallmark movies. Our family even throws a Christmas birthday in there for good measure. (Zach is now 11!). I've done Christmas. But what have I done really?

I probably shouldn't have been thinking philosophically in the early hours of the morning when my sweet boy is very sick, and I'm an anxious ball of tinsel. I had it in my mind that all we had left to do was the actual day. I had covered all the bases. I had planned. I had pre-ordered. Yet, here I sat in the hospital knowing that now our Christmas was not going to go as I had hoped.

That afternoon a major tornado hit our town. Stewart and I watched it blow through from Evan's third floor window at the hospital. Little did we know, schools and churches were being destroyed, and peoples' lives were literally being turned upside down. Their Christmases will not be the same this year. They may never be the same.

Sometimes Christmas doesn't look like you think it's going to look. We all have time-honored traditions that we partake in every year, and then a year comes along that throws us for a loop. Our family is spending our first Christmas without Stewart's MawMaw. We have had to miss a few events because of Evan. But honestly, Christmas is not about us. It's not about our kids. It's not about our expectations. It's not about doing the things and running yourself ragged. It's about a tiny baby in a manger who came to save the world. If you don't stop and think about that, you haven't done anything this Christmas. If you don't bow the knee in worship, you have missed the point. And if you don't accept Him as your Savior, then Christmas loses its whole meaning.

Jesus, the Infinite One, became an infant. The Word became flesh and pitched His tent among us. What have you done this Christmas? Hopefully, you have stopped and been grateful for the greatest gift of all. And that is Christmas.