‘Different’ has become our new normal, so Christmas is different too
Just like always, Christmas has come again.
And for me, Christmas is different this year—again. I realize I’ve been saying, “It’s different this year” for several years.
This is life for someone who cares for an Alzheimer’s sufferer. As regular as Christmas, but far more often, the changes just keep coming: sometimes subtle, sometimes shocking, relentless, unstoppable.
Of course, some things are the same for my family this year. All eight of us are here, packages for each other piled under the tabletop tree in my living room. We’ll gather around a Christmas table laden with ham and roast pork and all the right accompaniments.
This is the first year Evelyn will not be at our table. We’re visiting her in her new home this week, in twos or threes or fours at a time. It wouldn’t mean much to her for me to sit with her all Christmas Day while my family is here at home, so I’ll be there only a short time. It’s the right thing. And it’s so different.
We’re learning to live with the different. My son and daughter are cooking most of the meal today. I’m giving my bed to one couple and sleeping on the pull-out in the living room. It would be silly for them to cram into a small guest room while I sprawled alone in the center of my California king.
It’s different, but it, too, is the right thing.
One thing isn’t different. All of us—Evelyn included—are enjoying happy times this season. I have a few pictures to prove it. I want to record this year’s Christmas in this chronicle so years from now I can “remember the forgetting.”
Left to right: Watching our long-distance grandson open birthday gifts via Facetime; trying to coax a smile with Mr. and Mrs. Santa at the Artis Christmas party; enjoying the wonderful desserts that were a part of that event.
Another thing not different: Christmas worship. But hearing the Christmas story again reminds me everything about the birth of Jesus was different.
An unprecedented conception.
Fear and loneliness for the frightened parents, and separation from everything familiar to them.
Labor pains in a strange location.
A baby!
Unusual visitors from surprising places.
Supernatural warnings to keep their baby safe.
Nothing was typical or even comfortable for Mary and Joseph when Jesus came.
Separated by the centuries from that event, we easily forget God sometimes does his best work amid discomfort and change. And so this year, I’m working to celebrate the familiar while watching to see what I can learn from the differences.
Meanwhile, holding to one tradition brings me joy. To the readers of this blog, whose encouragement has meant so much to me this year, I’ll say as I have in years past . . .
Merry Christmas!