with

I admit it:  I don’t want to go.

Here I sit at my computer, working, checking things off of my list.  More, I strike them through with satisfaction.  Those lines, they could be the slashed out edges of me, the angles of my shoulders, the sharp bones of my cheeks.  Sometimes I mark my identity by those lines, as though by them I can build a tower that reaches to the heavens.

Kevin walks in, home now from work, dropping the detritus of another day.  The leather bag that carries his laptop slumps, abandoned, against his chair.  “Ready to go?”  He asks.

Just a few weeks before Christmas, we had discussed taking the kids to see some Christmas lights.

But the time had come too quickly; I still have half a list to cross off, and what is the holiday except for these lists? I feel reluctant to stand, reluctant to find a coat, reluctant now to leave the house.  Sighing, I pull my hands away from the keyboard.

“Do you want to take a shower first?  If you do, I could…” I stall, gesturing minimally toward my computer. I can feel the cold, electronic glare on my cheeks, soaked up into my eyes.

I can do that when we get back,” Kevin says, and already I am working out the time.  Could I also do just a bit more work after?

“Okay, then,” I say, resigned, pushing my chair back from the desk.   

“Y’all ready to see some lights?” Kevin calls into the belly of the house, moving toward the door, punching the button to open the garage.  He steps out, and I gather my coat, listening as the pulley wheels hum, dragging that metal door along the edge of the ceiling.  I look back to gather my children. Zoe wanders down the stairs, thumbing the phone she holds in her palm, jacket looped over one arm. Riley looks up from something she’s been watching on Netflix and gathers the empty paper towel that still holds the crumbs of a snack. Adam tucks his chin, speaking low, his voice nearly masked by the deep-throated groan of that motor, that door yawning open like a mouth.

“Come back in 5 minutes,” Adam says to me, catching my gaze for confirmation.

“Dad says about an hour,” I say, thinking of the pencil I tossed carelessly on top of my planner as I stood up to leave, the diagonal slash it makes across the work day, the random bits of eraser scattered there like Riley’s crumbs.

Riley tugs on a sweatshirt and drops her own planner on the bar.  “Mom?  When am I going to finish writing my Christmas list?”  Her voice wobbles; her cheeks flush instantly with stress. I know Riley’s wishes by heart; I have already purchased her gifts. But of course, she doesn’t know this. I want her to be able to let go and enjoy this outing without worry. But how could I get her, my task-oriented, get-it-done girl, to understand that Love makes the list unimportant? When it comes to her lists; she’s obsessed.

“You’ll have time for that later,” I tell her, knowing that she will not otherwise find peace.

We could be a Christmas movie.  That’s what I’m thinking, climbing into the car, laying my coat across my lap. How many flicks are there about harried, Scrooge-y people who, focusing on all the wrong things, miss the magic of Christmas?  In fact, immediately one comes to mind, wherein cosmic forces (Elves?) decree that an over-busy, work-focused, Christmas-missing man must repeat Christmas Eve until he figures out that Christmas is about Love.  He buys his family expensive gifts, thinking surely that’s the thing required to stop re-living the day, but his family ends up feeling angry instead of grateful. They want to be with him, for him to love them enough to want to spend time with them. Finally, after so many repetitions of the same day, when he thinks he might never actually make it to Christmas again, he gets it. He stops trying to move on and starts seeing the people he loves. On that last Christmas Eve, the main character’s small son apologizes for taking up too much of his father’s time on picking a family Christmas tree, and the man, understanding at last, kneels down and scoops snow into his gloved hands, packing it into a snowball. Playfully hurling the snowball at his son, that newly wise dad says, “What could be more important than this?”  

The question sits, twinkling in my thoughts, like all those Christmas lights on our neighbors homes, as we back down the drive and turn away. I look in the rear view mirror, watching my kids take in all of the beauty around them. The glow of Christmas looks warm on their cheeks. And suddenly I’m reminded that if Christmas lives as a celebration of the coming of Jesus, it’s this Light breaking through our darkness. It’s Love that draws us away from our lists and check boxes into communion with God and each other. It’s our Immanuel, dying for us–for me–to let go and enjoy being with.

So even now, as we pack the decorations away, as we back out the drive and curve into a brand new year, this is my pilgrim’s gift, the word I cup in my palm: with. God with us. And us with each other.