Some Christmas Thoughts, from me to you

The big week has finally arrived! Christmas is in the air! The kids are out of school, we're saying our final prayers for snow, and there are freshly baked cookies on the kitchen counter, or at least there are in our dreams. But there is also a surplus of RUDE drivers on the road, angry people in line to buy so much STUFF and THINGS, and I think most of us feel some level of holiday guilt. And that just sucks, doesn't it? 

It's the part of the holidays that no one really talks about. Is it because we think no one else can feel it? Surely, I'm just being a Scrooge. Or maybe we hope that it if we pretend it's not there, it will just slip away in the night. Sometimes, I think we want so badly to experience the happiness and joy depicted in holiday commercials and movies and books and engagement pictures and Christmas letters and ANYTHING ELSE, that we try to fake it 'til we make it. To join the cookie bakers and the Secret Santa-ers, the shoppers and the soup kitchen volunteers, the decorators and the party hosts. While those are all really wonderful and beautiful traditions, I think it's important to say that not feeling that commercialized Christmas Spirit and not wanting to do these things does not make you a bad person. 

Surrounded by so much nostalgia, we can't help but feel a flood of memories at Christmas time. Because this is REAL LIFE, and real life can be sad, lonely and unfair, it's not always going to bring to the surface that one memory of your favorite Christmas morning when you were 9. And in adulthood, even the happiest memories bring a certain sense of reverence and sadness, because after all, they are memories. They're in the past, not the future. People pass away, relationships end, jobs are lost, and childhoods expire. And no matter how badly we may wish to go back and relive those precious moments, we can't. 

This is the part where I should probably say, "and this is why we must make new memories!" Which I do believe to be true, but instead, I want to say this: it is for all of these depressive and even debilitating thoughts and feelings that a Savior was born. In a humble manger, surrounded by nothing but animals and straw, a beautiful young woman, Mary, brought our Heavenly Father's Only Begotten Son into this mortal world. Without this birth of our brother, Jesus Christ, the most important event that ever did and ever will take place on this earth would not have happened. The Atonement - Christ's suffering for our sins, afflictions, sicknesses, injustices, and heartbreaks - is the only thing that can truly heal our hearts this Christmas, next Christmas, and all 365 days in between. If we allow Him, He will lift us up and carry us through our trials of faith. All He asks is that we live our lives as He did - serving, loving, and putting God's will for us ahead of the agendas we make for ourselves. In what is often a season of incredible heartache and pain, we are in an incredible position to best celebrate and utilize the healing and enabling powers of Christ's Atonement. 

My prayer this year is that you and I will stop comparing everyone else's best to our worst. That we will forget - if for just a minute - about masking our emotions with cookies and presents (which I love - don't misunderstand me!) and focus on our brother, advocate, and friend, Jesus Christ. That amid our inevitable afflictions, we can find hope and light, and a reason to smile. That is what Christmas is really about, y'all. Because of Christmas, my broken heart can and will be made whole. And that is beautiful.