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Advent has brought Christmas. What are we to do now after the big run up to Christmas? Every gift has been wrapped (hopefully). The tree is in place.

What's the best part of Christmas? What do you expect of others and of yourself at this time of the year?

These days leading up to Christmas are charged with expectations. Simplify Christmas. People face one challenge in simplifying Christmas: They feel guilty about not doing it right. They feel guilty about not doing enough. Most often, the guilt swirls around family.

Let go of all anxious buzz. Make Christmas Mass your Christmas celebration. Never put Christmas Mass on a check-off or to-do list. The great event now is Christmas Mass.

Plan ahead to attend in a special mode. Don't arrive at the last minute. Don't arrive in a hassle. Wear festive clothing; men should wear a tie. Sit in a different part of the church for Christmas Mass.

Don't expect a great homily. The worst preaching occurs at this time of the year: platitudes, syrupy sentimentalism and social commentary. Don't expect angels in the choir loft. Don't expect children to be quiet.

Don't expect anyone else to make your Christmas - your spouse or your children or grandchildren. Don't expect your boss to come through at Christmas time. Don't expect a bonus to make your Christmas.

Sometime during Christmas, sit before the crèche at home or in the church or at the town square - wherever the Christ-mas figures are displayed. Sit quietly and ponder what all this is about.

Imagine being in that windowless cave. The baby is God; God is a baby. The infinite, eternal, almighty God has come to earth in human form with face and voice.

Can it be that a tiny, defenseless baby, born in the backwaters of occupied Palestine 2,000 years ago, is still praised in song as the Prince of Peace, the Mighty One, the Anointed of God, the Christ and Savior?

It cannot be a baby just like you and I were, once - but it is. Everything about Christmas is so improbable, and yet it is all true. It is God's choice and God's plan. Christmas Eve is a night of stillness. Listen for a moment. Let the silence speak.

In his poem, "The House of Christmas," G.K. Chesterton wrote that we are led "to the end of the way of the wandering star,/ To the things that cannot be and that are,/ To the place where God was homeless/ And all men are at home."

A blessed Christmas to all of you, friends.

(Father Rosson is pastor of St. Mary's/Our Lady of Lake parish in Cooperstown. This is the fifth and final in the Advent essays he wrote for The Evangelist. He did a similar series during Lent.)

(12/23/10)[[In-content Ad]]

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