The Anticipation of Christmas

It’s Christmas Eve.

I’m 22, I have a college degree; by quite a few standards I am now an “adult.”

And I still get antsy on this day.

This year I know several of my presents, because I helped pick them out, so my excitement isn’t primarily over gifts like it might have been when I was younger. I’m looking forward to giving some gifts, particularly to my nieces and nephew, and I can’t wait to see their happy little faces. In ways, these are things worth looking forward to.

But my anticipation shouldn’t be entirely about gifts or food or presents. Because tomorrow, we get to celebrate Christmas. 

We get to celebrate Jesus coming to earth as a tiny, wrinkly baby. Incarnation.

Coming to us, his people, in a way we can understand and relate to. Jesus skinned his knees and had hangnails and calloused feet and maybe dandruff and body odor. These are things we know firsthand, because we’ve experienced them too.

And Jesus, God himself, lived on this same earth we walk on.

So it is fitting that I get antsy to celebrate that.

Christmas is more than a day though. This year I’m trying to not put the actual day of Christmas on a pedestal. It’s only 24 hours, and whatever picture of a perfect Christmas I have in my head will not come entirely true. And that’s ok, because Christmas is more than about celebrating a specific day. My anticipation is directed towards more than tomorrow.

Last year around Christmas, I wrote in Advent: Found:

This is the part of Advent I think I had been missing though: the waiting doesn’t end on Christmas. The eager anticipation of that day is a taste of what I should be anticipating each and every day as I wait for Christ to come again…What happened in a stable as foreshadowing of who will come again…What we already have, but not yet in full.

Christmas isn’t just a day, it’s a state of being. Of being in continual hopeful expectation and longing for the day when Christ will return.

And that is something worth getting antsy about.

Merry Christmas, and til next time…

~Brianna!~

p.s. How do you celebrate Christmas? How can you keep it as a reminder that Jesus will come again?

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2 thoughts on “The Anticipation of Christmas

  1. Brianna, whenever I read your posts, I think to myself, “Wow. I want to be more like this girl.” Your optimism is inspiring and I love the way you write of such depth with such ease. You don’t require lofty vocabulary or need to wax theological to get me to really think about what you have written. That is a true gift, my dear.
    I am so thankful that I know you in person because it gives me a better opportunity to learn from you and to be a little more like you. 🙂

    1. You are too kind, my friend. Though it may look easy once I’m done, it rarely feels that way on the other side. I am so, so thankful we are cubicle buddies. =)

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