How to Not Dread the Holidays

If you’re like me, you’ve already begun to sense that creeping-in feeling of those bittersweet holidays. Like an eight-legged arachnid that crawls its way onto the leg of your new fall jeans while you’re trying to enjoy a moment in nature, the holidays creep in, threatening to steal your joy, sanity, and what little you have left of peace.

It could be because my girls have already hijacked my playlist and replaced it with Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas” blazing from the open windows of our 2014 minivan while we take in the last breaths of semi-warm air. All the while reminding me that Christmas as we know it is as much materialism as it is miracle. It sounds so sacrilegious.

But here’s the thing: the way we celebrate holidays in our modern Western culture is a far cry from the way God taught us to “get sturdy” (a celebratory dance) in the Old Testament. If you’ve spent time studying the O.T., you know that beyond the rules and regulations that first come to mind, it is the festivals and celebrations that are the O.T.’s jam. And we can learn a thing or two from them.

The festivals of Old Testament Israel shared three main themes: remembering, worshipping, and communing. They were often about pairing down and sacrificing rather than hoarding, a taking away rather than a lengthy wish list.

The people of Old Testament Israel were remembering the larger-than-life stories they could call their own because of God’s faithfulness to them.

They were worshipping the God who authored their journey.

They were communing with those with whom they shared a common spiritual origin and experience.

Though the Old Testament festivals may, at first glance, seem to hold little significance once Christ was born, the opposite is true. Here’s why:

First, the origins of the Christmas story can be traced all throughout the Old Testament. Furthermore, the festivals of old deepen—in a profound sense—the significance of Jesus’s life. As such, the format for celebration continues from the same thread into the New Testament, post-birth, when Immanuel entered in physical form.

The feasts of the New Testament are also marked by remembering, worshipping, and communing. Not only so, but this long tradition developed in them a spiritual practice so that when times were tough for the early church—as much as in times of celebration—their spiritual muscle would remind them to remember, worship, and commune. The heart was different, but the format was the same.

Take the Feast of Tabernacles, for example. Celebrated even today, this Jewish holiday in October reminds the Jews of God’s faithfulness while they were traveling through the wilderness between Egypt and the Promised Land. It was during the Feast of Tabernacles that God, through his faithful servant Moses, delivered the law to his people. Moses commanded the people to “[a]t the end of every seven years, in the year of canceling debts, during the Feast of Tabernacles,” read the law before all the people (Deuteronomy 31:10-11).

It was during this time of the Jewish calendar, on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles thousands of years later, that Jesus preaches, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will glow from within him” (John 7:37-38). Jesus is declaring that being close to God is no longer determined by our reliance upon the law but by our freedom to simply come to him and be filled by the Holy Spirit. He alone would fulfill the law.

The very next story is profoundly Jesus in that he chooses love above law. The Pharisees bring before him a woman caught in adultery, and he refuses to condemn her. This is the story where he oddly draws in the sand, taking everyone’s focus off the guilty party and onto him. Then he cleverly reminds the crowd that they (we) are all powerless in our sin. The law will always indict; love will set us free.

Jesus came to cancel your debts, pay the price for your sin, and lead the way in love. With “streams of living water flowing from within us,” we are free to remember, worship, and commune.

When you look at how you have celebrated Christmas in years past, which of your holiday traditions help you and your family members remember the Lord Jesus and what he came to Earth to do for you?

May you bravely choose to continue observing only the celebration activities and practices that aid in your remembering, worshipping, and communing. It takes courage to abandon those that feel like traditions but only cause hurry of the soul, discontent, and distraction.

Here are three ideas to refocus on remembering, worshipping, and communing this Christmas:

Start with Worship:

Does the increased running around of the holidays take our eyes off the main focus? What would it look like to start the season in a posture of worship and stay there? Consider going through a daily Advent devotional series. My recommendation? Ann Voskamp’s The Greatest Gift enriches my understanding and deepens my awe of how Christ’s coming fits within the larger context of Biblical and human history.

Another option? Get scrappy: many local churches offer simple prayer books or kids’ paper devotionals you can grab at their front desk for free. A plan that someone else has already spent an exorbitant amount of prayerful energy designing for you is a great resource to take advantage of, especially during the Christmas season.

Serve, sacrifice:

One way to get your heart set right around Christmas is to serve others. There are countless ministries that you can walk alongside. If you can’t find one, talk to your local church. They can almost surely connect you with a need that you can help meet in the community.

Last year, my kids and I signed up to help set up our church’s Mercy Christmas event. We hauled out all the new toys and gently used clothing from storage where we had been collecting it for the past year. The kids and I had so much fun turning the kids’ ministry wing into a free community toy store that we knew would bless hundreds of underserved families in our community the following day.

Gather as a body of believers in meaningful ways:

If Christ is the Living Water, the community of believers is like the series of road markers pointing the way to the oasis. (Psst, it’s this way!) One of the most refreshing spiritual practices is to meet with your closest brothers and sisters in Christ. Don’t go it alone!

My word for 2022 was weightless. It was a particularly pertinent word after coming off the commercial holiday stress many of us, especially moms, feel down to the soul. May I reflect on what I wrote then, in retrospect, to instead remember today proactively: “I must get to the root of my lacking joy: the weight. You may argue that the weight (aka: life’s circumstances) is outside my control. In that, you would be right. What I can control is my remembering. Remembering that Christ took the weight, bore the burden, and bought our freedom.”

Ah, freedom. I pray that you and I will enter the Christmas season with less hesitation and that by focusing on remembering, worshipping, and communing, we will experience the fullness of his freedom.

Check out these other posts about relieving Holiday Stress:

The “Guilt” of the Holiday Season

A Christmas Prayer for Mamas

POSTED BY

Jenna

Jenna Kruse is a teacher but not in a classroom. She loves to think outside the box and inside the Word and is daily in need of an attitude adjustment. She is a wife to Justin, a mother to three children ages 10, 8 and 5 and a mentor to teenagers and young adults. You can learn more about the heart behind her blog HERE.

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