Sunday, December 26, 2010

The Chaos of Christmas

Christmas was a bit disappointing this year.

 

Maybe it’s just that I had good, warm memories of last Christmas.  Last year (2009), was our first Christmas as a family (with Davey Will) in Cambodia, and we had a special time of celebration with Sopheaktra’s family.  Plenty of gifts under the tree for everyone.  I was finally healthy after about a month of on-and-off illness.  It was a great season.

 

This year, I don’t know.  It just wasn’t quite the same.  Because so many of our extra resources have gone into the ‘big Christmas present’ called our house, we didn’t have a lot extra this season to put a whole lot of presents under the tree (though we did well enough!).  Our get-together with family was on Christmas Eve, and people were just getting off work, so we got off to a much later start than expected.  Sopheaktra’s sister and her family also moved into their own home this year, plus just had a new baby, so finances were tight for them, too.  Having two toddlers in the family (Davey Will and his cousin) only added to the chaos, as they each seemed to be more interested in the presents the other one received – and they expressed that interest quite vocally and emotionally!  Our Christmas morning got off to an interesting start, with a policeman at our door.  It turns out he just wanted to get a copy of my passport, since we’re new to the neighborhood.  A minor hassle, but any encounter with ‘the system’ is a vivid reminder that social systems here in Cambodia are broken and often riddled with injustice.  So, yes, Christmas was just a bit chaotic this year.

 

I think one reason that Christmas can be so disappointing is that we have pretty high expectations of what Christmas ought to be.  I have a whole chain of wonderful Christmas memories to base those expectations on, and our (American) culture only reinforces what the Christmas experience can and should be.

 

But the chaos of this Christmas reminded me that it is those expectations that are themselves off the mark.  Christmas isn’t supposed to be a season of warm fuzzies.  Christmas is chaos.  Mary and Joseph didn’t put their newborn in a pack ‘n’ play.  They put him in a feeding trough.  Their baby was presumably surrounded by stinky animals.  They were soon joined by a group of shepherds, who may well have been stinky too.  I am positive that none of those shepherds – at any time – burst into a perfect solo of “O Holy Night.”   I’m reasonably confident that Mary and Joseph did not have any time to discuss the whole experience over mugs of hot apple cider and those marshmallow Rice Krispie treats.  And the whole picture is set in the context of the burdensome demands made by an oppressive, totalitarian political regime – the Roman Empire.  It wasn’t a pleasant holiday experience.  It was chaos.

 

And that moment of sheer and utter chaos transformed history.  It transformed me.

 

So, I reckon I can put up with a few minor inconveniences that occasionally fall short of my ideal of the ‘perfect Christmas.’  It’s not about getting the perfect holiday experience.  It’s about remembering the birth of our Savior in the midst of hectic, chaotic, high-stress situation.

 

So maybe a chaotic Christmas is just right.