Avoiding a Martha Christmas, and having a Mary Christmas ;)

I love Christmas. I am a total Christmas junkie! I love carols, I love lights, I love the smell of fresh pine wafting through the house. And I love the Christmas story- because it's not just a story it is true and when I remind myself of that I get overwhelmed with amazement at my incredible God.

This year though I am finding myself sliding into a very Martha Christmas. Martha is the sister who was so busy serving that she didn't have time to sit at Jesus feet and listen. Her sister Mary however just sat at Jesus' feet to listen And as I sit here this morning getting ready to wrap 50 odd presents for the kids at church, and ice some thank you gingerbread biscuits for my beautiful, beautiful team of Sunday School teachers- I am tending to think of Christmas as a chore rather than a point of celebration

Ironically I am spending most of my time working hard so that other people do see the true meaning of Christmas- I'm just so busy doing it that I'm forgetting myself. But I don't want a Martha Christmas. I want a Mary Christmas ;)

So, I thought I'd post up some special memory of Christmas that I have, some serious some not- to get my mind back in the right frame.

-Sandy and I loved Christmas time, because suddenly their was a whole new realm of pretend play opening up for us. We would spend hours under the Christmas tree, pulling off the angels and taking them on little adventures

-Mum and Dad and Sandy always kindly set aside my two favourite jobs for me to do- and even as an adult they sometimes still do. I was the one who put the star on the top of the Christmas tree, and I was the one who set out our nativity scene. The nativity scene was made in Bethlehem and was unpainted, wooden and simple. I loved it because it seemed so much closer to what the Bible says than the usual Mary in her beautiful blue robe and Jesus with blond hair.

-My sister was in Israel a few years ago and bought me my own little wooden nativity scene. I am so excited about bringing it out for my Playtime kids on Tuesday and giving them a sense of the simplicity and preciousness of the first Christmas.

-My favourite time of Christmas, funnily enough, was always Christmas Eve rather than Christmas. Christmas Eve had such a sense of anticipation. It was also when we went to church- and that to me was when Christmas went from just another holiday to something special. I remember a late night service at the small church near my Grandparents farm. We sang all those beautiful Christmas Carols and then we walked home under a sky full of country stars. I looked up and imagined the star of Bethlehem- gleaming to show the Magi the way.

-But my most precious Christmas memory wasn't even at Christmas. One night when I was Fourteen (I don't even know if it was December), I remember I was lying in bed and I couldn't sleep. I remember thinking about Mary, who someone had told me was probably very young when she had Jesus, because that's when people got engaged or married in those days. I thought to myself Mary might have been my age. It spun me out so much that I sat up in bed. I looked down into my arms and imagined a little baby in them. And then it struck me. Mary wouldn't just have held a baby. She was holding Jesus. She was holding God! God had become a baby. That was when I finally started to understand.

Immanuel. God with us.
Mary Christmas,
love B