And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for him in the inn.
Luke 2:7 (ESV)
I sat hunched over a pile of wooden pieces on our living room floor desperately trying to assemble a new doll stroller. It was going to be the perfect surprise for Christmas morning. Why had I waited until the night of Christmas Eve to put it together!? I scanned the instructions once more, maybe I had missed a step. I could not see how the pieces in front of me were supposed to miraculously turn into the item pictured on the box. I needed to bend a flat wooden board to create a curve, when-SNAP! It broke in two.
My husband heard my scream and came rushing into the room only to find me sobbing over a broken toy. It was not going to be the perfect Christmas morning I had envisioned. There was no back-up toy; this was the main event! He was relieved to see I was okay but confused why I was so upset. How could he not understand? What was our daughter going to wake up to on Christmas morning? And that’s when he gently reminded me…she was only 10 months old!
So often we place unrealistic expectations on big events like Christmas morning. We’re looking for a magical moment, the perfect picture, the surprise reaction. My 10-month-old daughter had no expectations for her first Christmas. She would wake up the same way she did every morning and be thrilled just to play with boxes and tissue paper. Oh, how I longed to have my husband’s understanding in that moment, but all I could feel at the time was disappointment.
I’m sure Mary had her own expectations of bringing a child into the world. How did she feel when she placed her newborn baby into a feeding trough? Was she disappointed they didn’t have room in the inn? She might have been, but the Bible tells us a few verses later that Mary treasured all of it.
It’s been over 10 years since that broken doll stroller. I thought Christmas morning would be ruined. But what I remember most about that morning is my daughter’s toothless grin as she tasted her first M&M and her laughter and excitement watching others open gifts. The toy manufacturer sent us a replacement doll stroller a few weeks later; and she never even played with it!
We cannot manufacture moments. I still try to have some Christmas surprises (but now assemble before Christmas Eve). However, the magic of Christmas morning is rarely the gift, it’s the celebration of the day that Jesus came into the world.
