I cannot tell you how many years I spent the entire season of Advent concerned only about finding the Chatty Cathy doll in the red dress, or a Cabbage Patch doll without a dorky haircut (or strange sounding name) and/or the Lego space station—or whatever special toy one member of our little tribe was requesting, nay, demanding, that year. It was always the same toy that 1,000,000 other little tribe members were demanding that year. Rarely, if ever, would a nagging thought at the back of my brain pop up and ask my more conscious self what I was doing to prepare myself for the coming of the Christ Child.

It will probably come as no surprise when I report that through all those years—years I spent untold hours in the malls of America—Advent was a time of spiritual dryness for me. December was always a cold month, not only outside but in my very soul. It was a month when my prayer life and anything that smacked the least bit of any spirituality closed down like a bear’s blood pressure during hibernation. Instead of Advent being a time when I was drawn close to the Baby we were all awaiting, I spent most of my time close to tears, frantic that I would never be able to get all the things done I needed to do, and realizing I was so tired, I’d never get caught up on my sleep. (As it turned out, I was usually right on both counts.)

Now that things are a little calmer in my life, I can look back and realize that most of this had to do with having way too much to do, too little time to do it in, too many expenses and not enough $$ to meet the expenses, high expectations on everyone’s part (including my expectation of myself), and major lack of sleep.

I’ve heard it said that when we feel we’re far away from God, we can be confident that He’s still there where He always was, it’s we who have moved. Now I’m not sure if that’s a very meaningful concept for me. In my experience, it’s less about who has moved but that a wall has sprung up between us.

It has occurred to me that the Christmas season, as we have learned to practice it in the United States in the last 50 years, can add a whole lot of humongous chunks of concrete to that wall. And many of those concrete chunks were put there in the name of doing something for somebody else. “I’m just trying to make a nice Christmas for my family,” we tell ourselves. “The whole neighborhood is decorated to a fare-thee-well,” we rationalize. “How would it look if we were the only house without decorations?” And we complain: “The kids expect so many different kinds of cookies.”

When I look back on those too busy, too full, too everything holidays of our past, I can’t point my finger at the person I used to be and scold her. Her motivations were good. Her heart was in the right place, as they say. Nor can I look back and help her see things differently, if only to try to help my daughters and daughters-in-law through a most difficult and trying time. (It did occur to me that no one is asking for any advice, anyway). But in those days my conscience, however badly formed, was clear. After all, wasn’t I unselfishly trying to make a wonderful Christmas for my family? Wasn’t I the one who was always giving, giving, giving? Well, yes and no.

I was still trying to live up to my own expectations of what Christmas “should” be. I was trying to make Christmas perfect according to my own definition, never mind the kind of Christmas God had in mind for us. And that’s what builds the wall: my ideas, my definitions, my will.

There are still some days when it’s absolutely more than I can do to try to tear down that wall. It’s all I can do to keep from adding more new cement blocks. Then there are other days when things are clearer. I know that every time I breathe a sigh of surrender, say one little bit of a prayer of release, the wall crumbles a teeny, tiny bit. And every time I fall to my knees and say, “Okay, let’s try it Your way,” a Volkswagen-sized concrete chunk falls away. Then at least the Lord and I can see each other. And that’s a big step in the right direction.

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