A confession...

I strongly dislike Christmas.

Yes, I am a bah-humbug-type person. First off, the cold weather completely puts me into a cranky, sour mood. I hate cold weather. I despise cold weather. The coats, the gloves, cranking the heater on the engine of the car, scraping the stubborn ice off the front windshield, not being able to roll down the window and feel the air on your skin without your arm hairs freezing off, waking up in the morning and not wanting to get out of bed or shower or even move because your ligaments have been frozen solid, the thick dry feeling of your throat after breathing in hot dry air all night, not being able to wear flip flops every day...

Yeah, I don't do cold weather.

I also don't like buying stuff for people. Crap is my descriptive word of choice. Or rather, I don't like feeling compelled to buy stuff for people. Gift buying should be spontaneous, done because all of a sudden you look at something and realize that this person would love it; or because you see a need, someone in need, and you have the means to meet that need. But yesterday, I found myself staring at an Etsy.com online store at some flower-themed magnets, thinking, Hm, I really need to get something for my grandmother, and maybe she'd like this. And I realized, her fridge is already covered with photos and scraps of paper and magnets shaped like states, and she really didn't need another magnet. All she wanted was something that said, Yes, I am thinking of you and care about you. What she needs is, above all, not crap.

I am learning to be a not-so-materialistic person.

What do I like about Christmas?

I like Advent - the anticipation of the birth of Christ, the reverence given this very coarse, unrefined, dirty event, the birth of a seemingly bastard Child from the womb of a peasant teenager in a dirty hovel of a cave - a most surprising, unexpected way of entry for the King of kings and Lord of lords. I love the spiced smells of cider, the warmth of fire and candles. I love rum cake! I love cuddling up with Amelia and Grace on the couch, the smell of unwashed little girls' hair and the feel of slightly scratchy old pajamas, listening to my father's steady baritone voice reading out loud the birth story from the Gospel of Luke, the pirouette hazelnut sticks and summer sausage with crackers and cheese at ten o'clock in the morning, Sufjan Steven's quirky, joyful, struck-with-awe-sounding Christmas album.

There still is much I love about the Christmas season; still some things that put me off, but many things still that draw me close to God, the people in my life that God has given me to love and be loved by. So I maturely lay aside my intense hatred for cold weather and dislike for buying stuff, and choose to embrace this season of joy.

O come, o come, Emmanuel.