This time of year a picture of “happily married with two kids and a golden-doodle all in matching pajamas by a roaring fireplace” runs around in our heads and we measure how badly we miss that ideal, making ourselves miserable for all the shortfalls. “Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year” is the biggest lie we tell ourselves in Western culture. Yes, the music is heavenly and the lights are glorious but beyond that, there is life as usual. Actually, life as usual is amped up and stress to fit the mold is heightened. We feel we must keep everyone happy-clappy and when we fall short, and we do, we have to deal with unmet expectations.

So what if we put an end to the need to measure up to that impossible picture of perfection? What if we take a step back and not. Not make all those expected treats and not wring our hands over missed loved ones and not set the bar at an unattainable level? What would that look like? It may look like no Christmas cards, empty chairs, fewer stocking stuffers, or fewer lights on the house. 

Or maybe it would look like missing your mom and being alone away from family and friends with a new spouse in a dirty lonely dark cave used for animals while preparing a place for a newborn baby from a slobber covered feed trough and the smell of manure all around. There is no clean water, no comforts of home and no one believes your story of an angel and virginity. The birth is painful and the baby is born. What next? The birth of the King is celebrated not by authorities and leading rabbis, but by handicapped smelly, thieving sheep-herders who claim to have been heralded by a host of angels. Is this what the God of the universe intended?

So maybe it is time to let the cliche picture in our heads go. Maybe the best gift we could give ourselves this Christmas is to not expect anything out of the ordinary but to let it be as Mary did so long ago.