More than Enough

My husband, Ben, and I scaled back our usual Christmas preparations significantly this year. We both love everything about the Christmas season, and in the past have gone all out in gift planning and get-togethers. This year, we just haven’t. Our Christmas tree—one of our favorite Christmas traditions—is up and looking cheery. But other than that, we’ve kept it unusually laidback. We’ve bought only a few, simple gifts. Instead of buying each of our nephews and nieces an individual gift like we have other years, we went to a couple local dollar stores and filled a box with fun toys, games, and treats for all the kids to enjoy. (They had just as much fun with it, and it was a lot more affordable and less work to put together!) My Christmas present for Ben—a knit sweater—definitely won’t be finished by Christmas. (He knows this, and is fine with it.) We haven’t tried to find ways to see everyone we’d normally have liked to see during the holidays. Instead, our plan for Christmas is spending a quiet week with family. 

This wasn’t so much a conscious choice as just what happened: we went into the Christmas season tired. We didn’t have it in us—mentally, emotionally, or financially—to do a lot of shopping, traveling, or planning, so we didn’t. It wasn’t a decision made because we don’t enjoy these things or think they’re wrong. Other years, doing more and giving more was very meaningful and felt like a natural expression of our gratitude for God’s gifts to us. We just knew we didn’t have it in us this year.  

But what surprised me about doing less this year was how much of a relief it’s been. I expected to feel disappointed, like it wouldn’t feel special if I didn’t do all the things that have been meaningful other years. Instead, I entered Christmas the most at peace I’ve felt during this season in years. It feels like the rest we’ve both desperately needed is finally starting to seep into our exhausted souls. 

And I’m so grateful for this. It feels like this year we’re learning how to experience in a more tangible way a Christmas with less of our striving, and more open to fully receiving the profound gift that Christmas is. The gift of Immanuel—God with us—meeting us when we have nothing to give and can only receive.  

As Victorian poet Christina Rosetti wrote: 

O Lord, I cannot plead my love of Thee:

I plead Thy love of me; –

The shallow conduit hails the unfathomed sea.

When we know our love is nothing to brag about, we can cling to the security of God’s fierce love for us. When we feel like a “shallow conduit” with nothing to give, still we experience the “unfathomed sea” of God’s unconditional beauty and grace flooding in, filling and overwhelming us. And it is always more than enough. 

—Written by Monica La Rose. Used by permission from the author.