Jen Jeffrey: Christmas In November

  • Sunday, November 23, 2014
  • Jen Jeffrey
Jen Jeffrey
Jen Jeffrey

When is it ‘too early’ for Christmas? In a cyber-social world, we see many ideas and opinions come across our cyber-paths that give us insight about how each other thinks. I have come to appreciate all my friends’ interests and even their pet peeves.

My Daddy taught me a long time ago that we are a diverse world. He taught me to be open-minded to others’ perspectives and points of view.

This mind-set helps me in welcoming what each individual has to offer and I think too, that it helped my Christian walk toward truly LOVING others.

So, as various topics cross my homepage feed on Facebook, I look at what my friends are offering and I also look for areas where I can offer something to them. Sure, I like to make people laugh or smile with my posts, but I also like to engage in their posts and let them know that I stopped by for a cyber-visit.

I love each of my friends and, even if I do not agree or believe as each of them do, I find ‘something’ that I do agree with. If I disagree with something a friend posts, I just keep smiling and keep scrolling.

Something my Mama taught me (that I think Thumper’s Mama also taught him) is; “If you can’t say anything nice – don’t say anything at all.”

When someone is negative, it doesn’t offer anything that does anyone any good and it doesn’t make them more intelligent, it doesn’t make them more popular and it doesn’t make them ‘right’. So why say it?

In early November, there are always those friends who post about their pet peeve of “Christmas coming too early”. Some have even felt it is nearly a ‘sin’ to mention Christmas before Thanksgiving is over and the dishes are done.

With this being my husbands and my first Christmas as husband and wife, I was excited to begin decorating our home. When my husband was out of town on the second week in November, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to do the shopping for decorations and to have the house decorated as a surprise when he came home. Traditionally, when my children were little, we decorated for Christmas on Thanksgiving, but as the family gets bigger and we get busier, then doing all the things we want to do for Christmas takes time and just may change tradition.

Churches begin practicing for Christmas cantatas and Christmas plays way before Thanksgiving. And yes, the stores do begin placing the Christmas items on the shelves earlier than they used to, but my question is this, “So what?”

So what if some people need more time to prepare for their celebrations while others may not?

As I shopped for my decorations, I had wished to be doing it with Christmas music playing in the background so that the mood would be all-encompassing (but I am sure the store managers didn’t want to do that to their employees) and I shopped to classic rock. When I got home, I turned on Christmas music while I decorated our home and the fireplaces blazed.

This year, it wouldn’t take me a long time to decorate because Jason and I had absolutely no Christmas decorations and it will take years for us to accumulate those Christmas joys filling the house. The wind-up toys that sing and dance, the glittery candles and the frosty wreaths… there are so many things that make a home so warm and joyous at Christmas time.

Yes, Christmas IS about commemorating the birth of Jesus and not about the ‘hoopla’ that has become so commercial. But, LIFE itself is joyous and adding whatever brings joy as we get ready to celebrate Christ’s birth, isn’t ‘wrong’. God judges our heart and He knows if we mean to spread joy or harm. If we about spreading joy, why would give ourselves a time limit? We categorize enough in this world without telling each other when to spread joy.

I do realize that Christmas for some is very hard – it was for me just a few years ago. I dreaded Christmas and wanted to sleep through the whole thing!

The end of 2008 was hard for me as my life was taking a dramatic turn. I had to make a healthy decision for my life and that following year constituted in my getting a divorce. It was like death. My pain was great and I also lost my Papa (step-dad of 30 years) and I gave up my good-paying, but stressful job just to get through the emotional stress. As I made decisions that I knew would ultimately be better for me, it seemed that I had to deal with the ‘labor and travail’ for the next year.

When I had gotten myself “unequally-yoked” with someone who did not believe as I did, I became invisible - as did my faith. Oh, I thought I was still holding onto my faith. I was still a Christian and yet, I allowed my faith to become distorted and twisted by another person’s idea and philosophies that seemed to make sense at the time. It happened little by little until I was so far away from my belief and ‘who I was’ that I didn’t even know me anymore.

To leave that and to fall back into the arms of God as I knew Him… to have Him restore my faith to me… well, it was a rebirth with a lot of labor-intense moments. That first year was so painful, as I had become such a mousy, withdrawn, spineless mess. But as God began polishing away at the broken pieces, they started to shine again.

I took off my cloak of ‘victim’ and I stood on my shaky legs watching as God re-shaped my life. I learned so many things about God that I had ‘heard’ and I had talked about, but didn’t know from truly believing them. I knew I was to trust Him, but I didn’t know how to fully trust Him without taking back my fears. I could say I trusted, but it had to become first nature to me. It took that very painful time in my life and then to then ‘be still’ and watch God come for me as a hero.

He loved me and wooed me. He gave me gifts – but I had to be willing to see them and I had to be willing to receive them.  I had to re-learn my worth in God’s eyes as opposed to what I had been made to feel for so long. And, once I allowed God to ‘start from scratch’ and to use this broken heap of nothing… I saw my worth without Him and then my worth with Him and that made all the difference. I stopped trying to do things my way and without consulting Him. His way was so much better even if I couldn't see where He was going with something – I trusted and trusting Him meant that in a moment’s notice, He was my first thought and I wasn’t afraid. 

In 2011 I was moving back from New York and my friend Patti was helping me as we took turns driving on that rainy evening. As we hydroplaned and crashed three times into the Virginia Mountains, the moment my car stopped spinning and I saw that my friend and I were still alive, I knew God was at work and I didn’t panic.

I will never forget that moment when I heard my inner voice speaking to God saying, “God? You are doing something with this, aren’t you?” And it was as if I heard him audibly say with a wink and an elbow in my ribs, “Watch this….”

Banged up and sore I could have looked at everything that was ‘wrong’ – I needed a car, my new career to fall into place, my income to get better and to have a place to live …as well as still get my 3 and 1/2 year divorce out of the way. That alone should have been enough to bring doubt and fear – but it didn’t. I was excited! I KNEW God was up to something and within a few months every need I had was met and in the most unexpected ways. I had to let go of my plans and how I thought things should happen and I just watched God work and trusting the whole time. I quit the divorce, I saw how I was making it on my own over the last few years and I knew that God was my provider. And… I became stronger. I became whole again.

For quite some time, I had been learning all that He wanted me to learn and following the path He wanted me to follow and when things seemed to go wrong, I knew that all the little “cleanup on isle nine” events were leading me to the place God wanted me to be. I was no longer striving for what I thought I should be… I was instead listening to God tell me that I already was where He wanted me and to keep going. And as I kept going in His direction, He was making little changes here and there – some painful lessons – but needed and … I accepted them gratefully. No matter what I ‘couldn’t see’… I trusted Him and that was enough. Things have only gotten better since I moved away from trying to do things my way or when I would live in fear and doubt.

So years later, as I am now happily married and looking forward to sharing the celebration of Christmas in early November BEFORE THANKSGIVING… I hope friends will cut me some slack for starting a few weeks early.

The Christmas spirit has already begun in many of my friends. That “Christmas spirit” I refer to is the ‘giving’ of our hearts and… there is no ‘wrong time’ to begin that.

My friend Richie was on his way to see his girlfriend in Atlanta and he saw a woman hitchhiking on one of the coldest days of fall. It turned out that this woman was hitchhiking from West Virginia to West Palm Beach to see her brother who was on life-support.  Richie didn't just drop her off at a truck stop. After he picked up his girlfriend (who was very understanding) they took the woman to the bus station and bought her a ticket to West Palm Beach. What a gift! What if the Christmas spirit didn’t hit Richie until after Thanksgiving?

Last week, my former daughter in-law Ashley and her co-worker were going to lunch and saw a homeless man in the freezing cold huddled by a dumpster. Ashley couldn’t ignore what she saw, but she was compelled to do more than hand him money. She went to the Dollar General nearby and bought him a blanket and she got him something to eat. When she took it to him the man was shocked that someone actually cared.

It was probably easier for my friend Richie to afford the bus ticket than it was for Ashley to spend money she most likely needed for her own needs, but she listened to her heart and she trusted.

When I talk about my friends who don’t like Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving, it is just in fun when they pick on me. They know the real focus is having the Christmas spirit at any given time - that giving spirit of your heart.

My heart goes out to those who are hurting near the holidays. Those singles who feel alone, the single parents struggling to make ends meet and those who have lost a loved one or have been suffering an illness… whatever pain or hardship you may be experiencing, sometimes the holidays can make what we have to endure a little harder – but we don’t have to let it be so hard or get us so down that we can’t see another’s needs and where our gifts can be given.

When I was at the end of my rope feeling many emotions all at once, I was going through an illness, I lost a loved one, I was going through a painful divorce, I lost my job and had no energy left to fight. After I surrendered my will and let God love me, I began looking for His little gifts that I knew were there and I swallowed my pride to receive them.

No matter what faith you have or don’t have – giving is still giving and love is still love and that is something we don’t have to wait for.

jen@jenjeffrey.com

 

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