Every family has its Christmas traditions. One of ours is that something always goes wrong when we go to put the white lights on the tree. I try to remain calm but typically end up snapping. This year I took all the lights off the tree and started over with a set that worked. Christmas just isn’t perfect. Try as we might, something is always just a little off.

I love the story of a young woman named Nelle, who was stuck in New York on Christmas and unable to get home to Alabama to savor her family’s traditions. Her job only gave her one day off so she couldn’t travel home. Nelle’s friends invited her over to spend the day with them but she felt melancholy as she watched them open their piles of lavish gifts while she had nothing. The children opened rockets and toys from Santa while Nelle sat in the corner sulking in disappointment. Then Nelle’s friends pointed to an envelope under the Christmas tree. Inside was a note that said, “You have one year off to write whatever you please”. Nelle’s friends were writers, and they knew that she dreamed of becoming a professional writer. She didn’t think she could accept the gift but eventually, she did. And she wrote “To Kill a Mockingbird”. (Story first told by Harper Lee in McCall’s in 1961)

I love this story for so many reasons. It reminds me that sometimes it is the times in our lives when all is not quite right at Christmas when something amazing actually happens. Christmas is not about having the perfect family or idyllic setting. Naming our longings for light in the midst of the shortest days of the year becomes part of the holy journey. Even the holy family had its trials and awkward situations. No room in the inn. Unexpectedly pregnant and traveling on a donkey. Herod lurking in the wings with violence on the agenda.

The story of this generous gift from friends to Harper Lee, a poor struggling artist in New York, reminds me that God sent Jesus to us that love might become tangible in human flesh. The fancy theological word is “incarnation.”  In whatever melancholy or disappointments we experience in this less than perfect life, God still breaks through to give us the most lavish gift of all. As John says it “The word became flesh and dwelt among us…And the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it”. There is still hope. Always still hope.

Grace and Peace,

Carla