Packing Christmas away each year is never as much fun as preparing for the holiday. When taking down the tree, unplugging the lights, and storing all the various decorations, a little melancholy filters into the moment. All the anticipation is passed. The memories seem out of place after the season. The atmosphere is colder, both outside the front door and inside our attitudes and outlook. It seems like such a long stretch of time until spring and the uplift of warmer temperatures, flowers and bright colors. Now is the gray time of the year. Aside from the hopes of a Steeler Super Bowl, there isn’t much to look forward to.
The post-Christmas doldrums don’t bother Baxter. He is a creature of habit, strict habit, unrelenting habit. If I miss a feeding time or his nightly brushing and treat, he is incensed. He doesn’t like to have his world disrupted. If I move his water dish or mattress to another spot, he is suspicious, cautious about using it and gives into the new setting only reluctantly. Baxter doesn’t like anything to shake up his world and alter his routine. His life is steady, and he wants it that way. Christmas is an unnecessary interruption as far as he is concerned, and if it is over, he couldn’t care less.
Christmas brings excitement to our lives because it surprises us. God surprised Mary, Joseph, the shepherds and the magi with the birth of His Son, but that is just the beginning of the story. He continues to surprise believers with people, events and experiences that didn’t have a place in our lives before. Some of these might be wonderful from the start like a new baby, a new friend or a new activity we love. Other surprises may throw us for a loop at first— that cancer diagnosis, that unexpected death, the drugs we found in our son’s room. Nevertheless, all of these are reminders that the Word has taken flesh and continues to dwell among us. We have to look for this meaning when we face such surprises.
Happy surprises are not just good luck. They are blessings and signs of divine providence. Disorienting surprises are not just bad luck. They are challenges to our vision of faith, calling us to go deeper into the mystery of how God’s love supports us even in life’s adversities and pain. We have to be open to surprises as the experiences God uses to keep the meaning of Christmas alive throughout the year.
Baxter, you don’t know what you are missing by insisting on your rigid routine. The God who made us and loves us has a surprise in store for all of us. He showed it first in Jesus. It’s not just luck, good or bad. It’s life, full of grace.
