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Last Christmas

ByGlenn McCarty

It was November 8 of this year when my wife decided it was time to decorate the house for Christmas. 

That’s right, November 8. 

And I was okay with it. 

In a flurry of afternoon holiday exuberance, she trekked to the basement, hefted tote after tote upstairs, and set about transforming our kitchen, nutcracker by nutcracker, garland by garland, twinkly light by twinkly light. 

And I was okay with it. 

I, who, while not a Scrooge by any stretch, typically play the role of the wait-until-Advent-to-decorate guy in our house. It’s always been my perspective that these sorts of festive seasons mean more if they’re waited for. That’s the main point of Advent, right?  

But in the days since, I’ve come to ask myself why this guy is suddenly not just okay with this schedule, but ready for it, anticipating it. I can’t wait to go Christmas tree shopping, to stream Elf and The Muppet Christmas Carol, to watch Andrew Peterson and friends sing about the “old, old story” at the Ryman via livestream. All of it. Bring. It. On. 

Why the change of heart? I’ve been asking myself. 

And I think I know, or suspect, why. 

This will be the last Christmas before we send our oldest off to college. My son wasn’t technically born in this house, but we moved in before his first birthday, so he’s spent nearly all his life here. Every corner of this place is touched by memories of our family of four, and nowhere are those memories more poignant than at Christmas. As my wife was setting up the nutcrackers on our kitchen hutch, she reminded me of the silly hide-the-Nutcracker game we used to play with the boys when they were little. The stockings are always hung by our non-chimney with care. We’ve posed for Christmas card photos in a dozen different spots, inside and outside. The memories are endless. 

The truth is, we want to drain every last drop out of the Advent and Christmastide season because we know – this unsaid Sword of Damocles hanging like mistletoe over our heads – that this will be the Last Christmas before we launch him. And yes, he’ll be coming home for break. We know that. But the dynamics of our family – the way it’s been for 15 years- has been the Four of Us. Like that Beatles song, but doubled. 

There’s a Christmas song by the band Sixpence None the Richer which has served as a bookend to this Christmas season, where lead singer Leigh Nash sings beautifully about getting the house ready at Christmas time to welcome a new baby the following summer. 

It’s the last Christmas,” she sings, “without you.” 

What a beautiful song of anticipation, I always used to think. Well, whatever the opposite of Advent is, this year we’re feeling it. Maybe some of you are in this same life season, anticipating, or living in, a home that feels a little – or a lot – less full this holiday season. And, whew buddy, there’s no way to get ready for it. Trust me, I’ve tried. 

So how do we live in this space? 

I’ve drawn comfort recently from Jeremiah 31, a beautiful song of hopeful returning given to the Hebrew people during the exile. (Go ahead, read the whole chapter at once. I’ll wait.) There are so many images of growth and reclamation and beauty woven throughout the whole chapter. But it’s verses 16 and 17 I find the most relevant during this season: 

“Restrain your voice from weeping
and your eyes from tears,
for your work will be rewarded,”
declares the Lord …
“Your children will return to their own land."

I know; I’m not going to make that mistake of me-ifying a Scripture so obviously not meant for me. But taken in the context of the entire chapter, it’s clear to me that our God is a God of reconciliation, of healing, and of mending, that the work that has been begun here in our little home will continue even when we’re not all living here anymore. 

That passage is a perfect complement to Isaiah 43: 

Behold, I am doing a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.

“Now it springs forth.” What a beautiful reminder that even now, when we are in the midst of the season of anticipating the changes to come, and already starting to live in these seasons of change, that God is promising that the new thing he is doing is already beginning. The changes to ourselves are already being performed, maybe even without our knowing it, and we are being prepared to be the people he desires us to be in the days to come. There will be another chapter after this one, and it is already being written. 

I think about the prophets, foretelling the time when the Hebrew people would return from their exile and begin the slow, necessary work of the rebuilding of the wall. And I think about Nehemiah, who took up this task. 

Our family has been a fortress all these years against all forces outside this home which would seek to steal the light from our hearts. We as parents have been caretakers of that fortress, while at the same time, readying our oldest for the time, coming next fall, when he will set out on the winding road away from this fortress, into the wild world beyond. 

And yes, our fortress will soon contain not four, but three, and then two. But this Advent season, we are savoring this season while anticipating the next, whatever it will bring, and whatever it will look like.

We anticipate the new thing. While I am sure it is not without its growing pains, I rest in knowing that our work will be rewarded, whatever form it will take.

Glenn McCarty
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