Are you surprised to find a post here? My husband recently informed me that he’s going to stop reading my site, along with the rest of you. I didn’t intend to take a posting break, but it just happened with the past

12 days of activity…
11 new choral pieces
10 stacks of gifts
9 choir rehearsals
8 (is what people did at my house)
7 hours cleaning
6 minutes to undo it
5 HOURS SLEEP
4 hyper kids
3 sets of relatives
2 strains of viruses and
A husband with a rocket launch.

It all began when we bought this house four years ago. The realtor withheld vital information from the Seller’s Disclosure. The secret? Our street turns into Candy Cane Lane during the month of December, and part of our neighborly duty is to join the uniformity of the street by placing a nine foot tall gigantic, lighted candy cane along the curb. I thought for sure it was a joke, but I learned it wasn’t when the neighborhood kid came by with a posthole digger. Every year, merchandisers create a new gimmick, and the candy cane thing just can’t keep up with the lighted fake icicles, blow-up Santas, and other miscellaneous lawn decorations. However, instead of replacing the old with the new, neighbors just keep adding to their piles, so that now– faded, whitewashed plastic Santas share the manger grass with 20-foot blow-up, tied-down waving polar bears. We only have .3 acre lots here, you know.

As part of my Christmastime rebellion, we only decorate our Colonial home with large red bows and a single candle in every window. We didn’t even put up a tree this year, much to the complaining of all the relatives. When the kids asked for a little holiday sparkle, I sent them outside for five minutes to look at the next door neighbor’s yard.

neighbors

A steady stream of cars paraded our street for the last couple weeks to gawk, concluding the season in the annual traffic jam around the cul-de-sac bonfire on Christmas Eve. One evening while my husband was outside, an onlooker leaned outside his truck window, and yelled angrily, “Hey, Buster! Put some lights on your house!”

Maybe he knows the guy who smashed several of our street’s candy canes on Christmas Eve. May they rest in peace.

It is not often that I let the culture dictate my agenda. As a Christian, it is my goal to be counter-culture– not for the sake of being odd, as if being odd legitimizes my Christianity, but because it is oftentimes true that when the stream is flowing fast in one direction that God is calling his people to swim the other way. In no other area of life—education, spending habits, down to the clothes on our backs—do I consciously allow the culture to dictate the choices I make. God’s people ought to set standards rather than be swept up by them.

Now that it is the day after Christmas, I find it easier to muse on the meaning of it all and my response to it. If I mentioned aloud what I was thinking two weeks ago, the Christmas Police might have protested my right to protest. But now that presents are stacked in every corner of the house (because there really is no room for more stuff), the Christmas tree is dried and shriveled, the relatives are all mad at each other, and Dad has to climb on the rooftop before the New Year to retrieve the lights, my reflections might be more welcomed.

While I am glad for the reason of the celebration, sometimes I find the process and external expectations of celebrating quite tiring. Dave Black points out that God never commanded us to remember His birth–but rather, His death. Yet the thing he commands us to do, we do so only once every month or two in our churches.

God calls His people to be light. How do I fulfill His call as I grumble about all the lights and tinsel I’ve allowed into our schedule? How much is self-imposed; how much is culture-imposed? How much of this is God-imposed? As a Christian who seeks to do His bidding, this is a legitimate question, as I seek to glorify God in my daily schedule and in all things.

While we won’t forsake celebrating our Savior’s birth altogether, this past Christmas season’s busyness reminded me that the yolk God places on His children is always and perpetually, light.