Do you ever just feel super-stressed out this time of year?

Maybe you’re looking at your “Gotta Get This Done Before Christmas” list.

Maybe you don’t do lists.

Either way, you know that you’ve got cookies to bake and put in those cute little tins to give to people.

You’ve got some gifts that you need to finish making.

Then there’s all the gift wrapping that needs to be done.

And the different holiday gatherings.  What are you going to bring to the work “holiday” party?  What kind of white elephant gift do you bring–a jokey one or a nice, but cheap one?  Or what do you get your Secret Santa?

And maybe there’s a school Christmas concert.  You know the elementary school band will be playing, and that is both a joyful and painful experience.  There will be those adorable kindergartners singing off key.  One little boy will have his finger up his nose the whole time.

Maybe you always go to the Nutcracker every December.  Or the Christmas Pops concert that the symphony does every year.  Or maybe it’s the Evensong or the Messiah.

And those are all the good things.

Then there will be the tough things that don’t make an appearance on your list (or lack of list).

The boss or co-worker who drinks too much at the office party and says or does inappropriate things.

That one family member who makes everyone uncomfortable at Christmas dinner by talking about politics.

Or that one relative who always has to dominate every conversation possible and has to always be right.  (Is anyone else picturing Lady Catherine de Bourgh?)

Or maybe you don’t get along with your parents or they disowned you.

Or maybe it’s the first Christmas without someone.  Mom.  Dad.  Grandma.  Grandpa.  Husband.  Wife.  Child.

Maybe it’s the last Christmas in this old house where all these memories are.

And Grandma/Grandpa/Great Aunt Mabel will want to tell you all about their arthritis and the state of their BMs.

Christmas is a wonderful time of year.  But it’s also a very hard time of year sometimes.  I think that’s okay.  In fact, I know that’s okay.  It’s a season of life and life is full of hard things.  It would be nice that things would be as wonderful at Christmas time as they are at the end of a Hallmark Christmas movie where the main characters are blissfully happy, kissing under the mistletoe and everything just feels perfect.

I could handle that for a day or two.  Or more than that…

But since this world is a messed up place, it’s a sure thing that life is going to be messed up more often than not.  And really, let’s be honest, we can just thank Adam and Eve for all that.  Eve was deceived by the serpent and Adam decided to go right along with her.  (You can read the story in Genesis 3.)

Since then, things have been messed up.

Isn’t that why we have Christmas, though?  Adam and Eve messed up (sinned).

God could have just left them alone, left Earth alone to its own devices and gone somewhere else to start over.  Or God could have wiped everything out and started over.

But he didn’t.  God said that he would send a deliverer, a Messiah, a Savior, a substitute.

And Christmas, Advent, is all about just that.  Jesus, the Son of God, was born a human, to live as a human, to die.

That tiny baby in the manger would eventually be that man on the cross.

So I guess it’s okay that Christmas is good with some tough mixed in.

It’s just a reflection of life and of the first Christmas.

The Messiah had been born.  The Savior was here.

But, eventually, the Messiah, the anointed one, that adorable little baby, the hope of all the nations, the world, would be beaten and mocked and crucified.

He was born to die.

And at Easter we celebrate that.  But I can’t help thinking about it this time of year.  It is a joyful thing, the birth of the baby in the manger.  But the knowing of what came later makes it bittersweet.

So maybe let’s not stress out if we don’t feel super happy all season long.  Maybe let’s take the bitter with the sweet, the sorrow with the joy, and remember that’s what the first Christmas was like.

Here are a couple of verses for today.  Here is hope in the midst of whatever sorrow you may be feeling.  And, of course, a song.