The End of Stressmas

The Stressmas Elf,
re-configuring church space for online streaming

In my experience, the week before Christmas is a rather busy and chaotic time. I semi-jokingly name that week ‘Stressmas’ as it’s a week of a much planning, little sleep, and poor eating habits. Coordinating services, writing sermons, arranging pastoral calls and cards, church decorating, late nights and early mornings that lead to a generally high-intensity time.

And it’s not just clergy: we all add extra to our lives in that week, the desire for home baking, the menu planning, the teachers’ gifts, the wrapping, the endless “what did I forget" mental aerobics.

Stressmas. It happens.

And while every year, we tell our selves we’ll do better next year, next year we have Stressmas again.

So part of my joy on the 25th is to recognise that Christmas comes.

It comes because God will be with us, regardless of our to-do list, regardless of our imperfections, regardless of our stress.

Emmanuel: God is With Us.

God is with us when things go right, and when they don’t; when things go according to plan, or when we COVID-pivot yet again. When the recipe works or fails; when the family photo is frame-able or forgotten; when the intentions are spot-on or entirely off. God is with us through it all.

God is with us because we make the genuine offering of what we have. And this offering, when it is of God and for God, is an oblation – a sacred gift. And I believe God delights in the offering: for that giving of self is not measured by earthly perfection. That holy offering comes, after all, from an imperfect person.

It is this oblation that coverts Stressmas into Christmas: it is the uplifting of the oblations of others, it is supporting the efforts of the countless helpers, it is connecting (even if only online!) with the love and praise in community, keeping our focus on God.

So now, as the schedule is calmer, and the to-do list is past, we enter into a sacred and holy time of Christmas. The season has just begun; it invites in. To breathe deeply, to love completely, to offer whole-heartedly.

May our Christmas journey truly be one of oblation; and may that be the gift that we carry with us through the year.