The True Holiday Spirit

Dear friends,

One of the privileges of being the editorial director here at The Glorious Table is that I get to write the first post of every month. As I pondered what to say to you this week, I confess I struggled to come up with something inspiring and uplifting. If you read my post last month, you know that my girls and I are approaching a somewhat broken holiday season. My husband is serving our country overseas until sometime in the spring. At the same time, my days have been shadowed by medical mysteries–a CAT scan, and now a PET scan next week. Being injected with radioactive dye doesn’t do much for my “holiday spirit.”

This has led me to ask myself, just what is holiday spirit?

When I was a child, the Christmas season meant traditions. They were everything. This ornament, that cookie recipe, this event on this date, that one gift to open on Christmas Eve. The “holiday spirit,” I thought, was a cozy feeling brought on by the sound of Christmas carols and the smell of gingerbread, the taste of eggnog and the glow of lighted branches. It can also be a feeling of wonder, the kind you get when you step out into a cold, clear night under a navy sky dotted with pale stars, and the sharp smell of snow in the air stings your nostrils, and the sounds of O Holy Night echo in your mind, and you know with glorious certainty that all of it had a Creator.

But what happens when that cozy feeling, that feeling of wonder, suddenly becomes elusive? What happens when you can’t get there?

There have been other years when it’s all fallen apart, oh yes. Years when I’ve spent the holiday season just going through the motions. Years when I thought I might never feel the “holiday spirit” again.

But Christmas is so much more than a feeling of any kind. And while there is beauty to be found in shimmering lights and shiny packages, in the warm aroma of cookies baking and the sound of laughter where loved ones are gathered, the real beauty is something humbler, something nearer to earth and yet nearer to heaven. A beauty that smells of animal warmth, a beauty that sounds like a stable at night.

Because Christmas begins with Advent, which means “coming,” or “imminent.” Christmas is an arrival. A birthday. It is the humblest of beginnings, yet it is also an answer to all the problems of this world, a solution to all the burdens we carry. It’s worth celebrating, even when it feels like there is little to celebrate in worldly terms.

So while I will spend Advent texting my beloved across five thousand miles of land and ocean, and waiting for medical test results, I am also throwing myself into all the good and beautiful things I love about Christmas for my daughters’ sake, even though that cozy feeling, that sense of wonder, feels far away. And somehow this feeling of far-awayness is reminding me each day to return to the center–to Jesus. We read and talk about Jesus daily, my girls and I. We talk about how he loves us, how we give gifts to each other in honor of his birthday; we talk about the miracle of his birth and the miracles he performed. We sing songs about him, and my preschooler carefully arranges and rearranges the figures in the Little People nativity (until the toddler sneaks up and grabs Mary or the baby and makes a run for it, and tears ensue). The gift I want most to give my girls, after all, is an introduction to the Savior.

Then, when all is quiet at night and my girls are in bed, I sit by the fire with a cup of tea and look at the Christmas tree, and I breathe his name in and out . . . Jesus. In the midst of the chaos, in the midst of the uncertainty and the loneliness, I feel him draw near, and I know that this is the true holiday spirit–this nearness, this awareness, this need. For we need him, don’t we? We need to celebrate his coming, his advent, in order to continue in hope, in order to persevere in faith.

Harmony Harkema has loved the written word for as long as she can remember. A former English teacher turned editor, she has spent the past seven years in the publishing industry. A novelist and blogger in the fringe hours of her working mom life, Harmony also has a heart for leading and coaching aspiring writers. Harmony lives in Memphis with her car-loving husband and two small daughters. She blogs at harmonyharkema.com.

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