On Boxing Day

This has been the most unusual Christmas. I take that back--spending Christmas in the hospital with my dad after one of his famous kidney stone ordeals was probably the most unusual. This is a close second.

We're in Rochester, Minnesota with my husband's family. One sister is in Washington with her husband's family. One sister is in Austin where my mom generously decided to stay. And my brother is in New Mexico with my sister-in-law's family.

For the first time in over 15 years I didn't spend Christmas Eve at my grandparent's house.

The benefit of having an unusual Christmas is observing your expectations shift. When you're entering into someone else's traditions, someone else's schedule, you find yourself more of a spectator. There is not the need to try to control outcomes or manage temperaments. Christmas is happening to you.

We haven't opened presents yet, and so there is that anticipation as well.

As for recalling Christ's birth, Christmas couldn't have come at a better time for me. You're familiar with those wandering doubts about God's goodness? The fall of man? God's plan for mankind?

Somehow Jesus still makes it all better. If He hadn't come, Christianity would look like every other world religion: separated from an angry or elderly/benevolent God (take your pick), awash in works-righteousness and without a remedy.

But He did come. He did come. He did. I keep butting up against that shocking reality. The Creator becoming one of his own creation to rescue it from the problem it created. Even if I don't like it, even if I don't understand it, He did it.

No wonder the angels said their tidings were of great joy.