Together with “exciting” and “joyful”, “stressful” is a word that is associated with the days leading up to Christmas and with the Christmas season itself. Increased rush hour traffic, shopping lists and parties to squeeze into tight budgets and schedules, tasks lists in the preparation of the Christmas dinner, caroling rehearsals, and year-end work to wrap up in the office all pile up at this time of the year. One is tempted to ask, “Is Christmas worth it?”
The antidote to all this stress of the season is to readjust one’s idea of a perfect Christmas, and to aspire for a contemplative one: one spent lovingly gazing at the Holy Family in Bethlehem, and reflecting on what must have been the sentiments of Mary, Joseph, and the adoring shepherds and Wise Men.
Given that the frenzied holiday environment is not conducive to contemplation, a contemplative Christmas does not just happen. It must be deliberately pursued. Here are some suggestions to achieve a contemplative Christmas:
1. Do not skip Advent. The point of this penitential, yet hopeful, season is to prepare for Christmas through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. The Sacrament of Penance is a great way to spiritually prepare oneself for Christmas during the Advent season.
2. Schedule pious practices scattered throughout the day: spiritual reading, praying the rosary, fifteen- or thirty-minute periods of silent prayer, daily Mass if possible, and other pious practices one likes.
3. Convert Christmas preparations into prayer. For example, while choosing, buying, and wrapping Christmas gifts, one can pray for the recipients. The same thing can be done while writing Christmas cards, shopping for and cooking the Christmas dinner, or taking the family out to see the city Christmas light displays.
4. Offer up the inconveniences of the holiday season. There will always be reasons, big or small, to complain about the holiday season. Perhaps it is the first Christmas after the loss of a loved one, or perhaps the holiday season aggravates certain family issues, or one is suffering from seasonal affective disorder. Perhaps on some days, the increased rush hour traffic just gets to one’s nerves. Perhaps one is an introvert for whom the thought of attending just one more party is a trial. Fortunately, all these inconveniences borne with a smile can be pleasing gifts to the Christ Child.
5. In relation to the previous suggestion, think of what the Holy Family had to go through. Thinking about Mary and Joseph having had to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem with the available roads and transportation at that time, and with Mary about to deliver a baby, helps one to put on a serene smile as one endures rush hour traffic from work to that obligatory party with one’s relatives.
These suggestions will not eliminate holiday stress. But they are tried and true ways to convert the holiday frenzy into true, meaningful, joy that comes from contemplating the Holy Family at Bethlehem. Regardless of what one must endure during the holiday season, a contemplative Christmas is always a happy Christmas.
3 thoughts on “I’m Dreaming of a Contemplative Christmas”
Cristina Montes is full of JOY and Grace. We need more like Cristina…God Blessed.
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Preparation and planning for the holiday season would be good to de-stress the season. Some recommendations I have found useful to spend more time on a contemplative Christmas are as follows:
1) Set a budget for Christmas and have it saved for and set aside by June if possible.
2) Use said Christmas budget to start making fruitcake in May (budgeting includes two separate ones for gifts and one for misc things like parties and dinners and such)
3) Have gifts procured and wrapped PRIOR to Advent.
4) Have meal items purchased prior to Advent, ideally throughout the year using said misc budget (obviously choose items that have a longer shelf life to purchase first)
5) Continue with pious activities you do through out the year and sprinkle a few more in like Christina said: Centering Prayer, Lecto Divina, daily mass, the sacrament of reconciliation, daily rosary & daily mass attendance are all good to start with.
6) Make a nice fire and invite friends and family around to share in festive libations or good pipe tobacco and engage in fun conversation with topics about Advent. Enjoy the holidays stress free, as they were and ARE meant to be.
7) Purchase wrapping paper and other such needed things after the holidays while it is still on sale for next year. As such one should then repeat process and relax in January as there will be NO credit card debt to come due in the New Year.