The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

It's the most wonderful time of the year. That's what the song says. And on one hand I wholeheartedly agree. I love Christmas, I've always loved Christmas. But I can't say every Christmas has been great. There have been a fair few over the past eight or so years when it's just been plain painful. I can remember vividly one year standing at the back of church discussing Christmas plans with some friends, I can remember the excitement and joy on their faces and in their voices, and I can remember feeling that it was excitement and joy that I had lost and would never get back.

My dear Mum was in her element at Christmas time. The house would be transformed into a wee grotto, every year with some new and tacky decoration that she had picked up in the sale the year before. The kitchen would be bursting with baked treats that could be whipped out on a wee silver serving plate if visitors appeared at the door, and there was always a smell of Festive Spice room spray hanging in the air. In those years I couldn't have imagined Christmas any differently. We would always have dinner around our table with Gran and Grandpa. Gran would always have her wee glass of sherry. Grandpa and Dad would always stay at the table with cigars after the meal while the rest of us "had a comfy seat" (although sometimes I stayed in the dining room just to be next to my beloved Gramps). It was just perfect.

Between Christmas 2006 and Christmas 2007, we halved in number and our Christmas tradition disappeared forever. And this year, for the first time in a long time, it feels something close to how it did back then. I have tried to follow my Mum's example and I've been baking away in the kitchen. Sadly, I don't have any of her recipes, but I have made Christmas Cake and Christmas Pudding to recipes that seemed close to what I remember. And I've added some favourite recipes of my own. We've enjoyed planning the menu for Christmas Dinner and ordering all the groceries from our local butcher and grocer, and we are looking forward to hosting a few different family visits.

But it's not all tinsel and snowflakes. Alongside all the joy and excitement at the season, I am faced with a new wave of grief for my dear Mum. My first Christmas as a married woman, hosting our first Christmas dinner, and of course still trying to come to terms with losing our first child and the chaos that still seems to be going on in my body. All of it makes me long for a cuddle, a cry and a long conversation with her.

I am all too aware that Christmas doesn't feel like the most wonderful time of the year for everyone.

We have an amazing big tree outside our living room window, and I have said a lot recently that I feel like that tree, stood totally bare, battered by the wind and hail and rain, and with all its leaves rotting on the ground. Over the past week it has felt, too, like my winter tree stands in the middle of a spring or summer forest, surrounded by trees that are blossoming and bearing fruit.

Owen reminded me the other night that trees have unseen roots and that they grow new leaves and fruit in the new season. So, I decided to google what happens to tree roots in the winter:

Roots remain mostly inactive but can and do function and grow during winter months whenever soil temperatures are favorable, even if the air above ground is brutally cold.

Even in the brutal, icy winter of my heart, I can grow and deepen my roots. I can keep pressing into God. The God who sent His Son as a tiny baby to be Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. No matter what my circumstance looks like above ground, I will do the hard work of growing deeper so that when summer comes it will bring fruitfulness. This Christmas I am thankful for the many blessings I have - an incredible husband, lots of loving family, a warm home and food to put on the table. And I'm thankful for the little baby born over 2000 years ago to be the Hope of the Nations. In Him, I have hope for the future.