Christmastime

It’s Christmastime. I love Christmas – it’s definitely my favorite holiday. Ok, so maybe it’s a pagan holiday and yes, I am guilty of being one of the many Christians who forget the main point of it all. But I can’t help but savor the sights and sounds of the season – the lights, the music, the romance, the foods, the general goodwill of most everyone you see (excepting those crazed shoppers at the mall). I think it really all comes down to traditions. We grow up enjoying certain ways of celebrating Christmas, and often, we celebrate the same way every year. But then how do we handle the shock when, for some reason or other, we celebrate Christmas differently?

I used to be a real brat. I still have my bratty tendencies, to be sure. However, on the whole, I believe that I’ve definitely grown out of a lot of those not-so-attractive traits. But I was a brat and a control freak as a child. Hard to believe? I know. Yet there’s evidence to prove it.

Example: A classic home video of the Gerard children (Alli at age 4; Andy, age 6) sitting at the grand piano in the living room of their home in Berrien Springs, MI. The kids are adorable – a blond-haired, blue-eyed boy and a curly red-headed girl – and they are even more adorable because they’re pounding on the piano keys as they sing Christmas carols (Alli was actually singing “Park” the Herald Angels Sing). Adorable. Until the little girl thinks to herself: why should I be singing a duet when I could be singing a solo? And so little Alli starts telling little Andy to “Stop it, stop it – listen to me! I’m going to sing it by myself!” And sweet little Andy – ever the model child – just smiles and lets his younger sister sing the wrong words to Hark the Herald Angels Sing.

When it came to Christmas traditions, the control freak in me came out pretty strong when I was younger. I had to help put the ornaments on the Christmas tree, I had to arrange the Nativity scene exactly as I saw fit, we had to eat the same foods every year for Christmas dinner, and we had to watch the movie “White Christmas” on Christmas Eve and only on Christmas Eve – that’s right, it could never be watched on any other day of the year. I’m pretty sure I drove my family crazy.

I’m not sure exactly when I began to loosen up on my rigid Christmas stance. Maybe it was when we moved to southern California and I had to come to grips with the idea of not having snow in my front yard. Or maybe it was when I realized that having the same foods for Christmas dinner every year was actually quite boring, and so we made Indian food one time. In general, I think I just began to enjoy variety in life more and more (I trace this back to our family moving to new places and traveling out of the country), and I began to enjoy trying new things more often. I began to enjoy being adventurous.

Last year, I was in Argentina from September up until the week before Christmas. It was summer there in November and December, and Thanksgiving day was the hottest day of the whole year. Christmas in Argentina isn’t as big a deal as it is in the states – you just don’t see the lights and decorations all over, and you don’t hear any Christmas music. So, in my mind, the Christmas spirit was somewhat lacking.

As Caressa Rogers and I traveled around Patagonia and then spent our last week in Buenos Aires, we were craving Christmas. We wanted holiday spirit, and we wanted it bad. I remember the day that we walked into a big shopping mall and saw in the main pavilion a gigantic, beautifully decorated Christmas tree. We almost cried. We definitely took pictures. We were ridiculous.

I also remember my mom asking me over Skype if I wanted her to go ahead and put up the Christmas decorations without me, or wait until I got home. I told her that I wanted to come back to a house full of Christmas and that she should definitely put up the decorations without me.

Once again, this year I was not present when the Christmas decorations were put up. I’m about to go home for the weekend, and I’m pretty excited to see them, but it doesn’t bother me a bit that I didn’t help put ornaments on the tree or that I didn’t get to arrange the Nativity scene exactly as it looked at the birth of Jesus (since, yes, I knew what this looked like when I was 4 years old).

So it’s Christmastime again, and I’m excited about the season. I love the sights, the sounds, the romance, the lights, the traditions. But this year I think I’ll let Andy sing Christmas duets with me, I might make Thai food for Christmas dinner, and I’ll probably still force my family to watch “White Christmas” with me on Christmas Eve. After all, some things never change.