Getting rid of the bug is an annual occurrence for me. No, not the flu bug . . . the “Bah Hum Bug.”
For many of us, as we remember our childhoods, Christmas was not such a wonderful memory. Oh sure, there were presents and of course we got out of school for what used to be called “Christmas Vacation,” but not all was well with the season. If you grew up with an alcoholic parent in the household, the yuletide season was generally one of family tension. Isn’t it amazing how thirty-plus years later the season begins with these small feelings of, well, not all is right with the world, yet everything around me seems to appear as it should be. I’m blessed to have a roof over my head, food on the table, and a healthy family. When we take drives in the car, I hear amplified choruses from the children of “Christmas Lights!” as we pass each decorated house. We have the smell of a fresh-cut fir tree actually upright in the tree stand (secured against the cats climbing it) with early wrapped packages surrounding the base. We have even worked out the “Christmas Day Shuffle” between our parents’ homes. Life should be great! Christmas should be great.
But for me, inside, where no one can see, the gnawing sensation was bubbling up. I wasn’t truly enjoying the season, and I really wanted to know why, and, more importantly, I wanted to know what I could do to fix it.
So in my atempt to "fix it," I turned to that classic piece of literature for Christmas Spirit regeneration, A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens.
As Scrooge meanders with his guide through his past Christmas experiences, I see how it was not so much his experience but his choices that determined his attitude and situation. While revealing that perhaps it is my choice to feel what I want to feel, this is not giving me the ability to overcome my gnawing sensation that perhaps Scrooge should have just rolled over and pulled the pillow over his head and awaited the team from “Ghost Busters” to relieve him of his vision.
Hey! Perhaps I just ventured out with the wrong Charles.
So I return to the classics with Mr. Schultz and a review of “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” As I watch Charlie Brown wrestle with his own fears of fitting in, struggles with commercialism and even the betrayal of Snoopy, I am given a glimpse that others too have looked to find out why they are not matching up to the yuletide ideal. Then of course, as I knew it would be, Linus takes center stage following his line, “I’ll tell you what Christmas is all about Charlie Brown, lights please.” In the few lines that follow an ever so brief but clear picture is created in the theater of my mind. I am transported back to a time when certain individuals who were not looked at kindly by society were greeted with a most unusual and unexpected experience: Angels anouncing the birth of one who would save the world . . . what would I have done if I had been one of those shepherds? Perhaps sitting around a campfire wondering about my lot in life and suddenly being told that my world was about to be turned upside down would be an exciting event, or perhaps realizing that I would not be readily welcome in the town would just be a reminder that I was an outcast. Or, perhaps the message then is the same one that I needed to hear today. That if I would only look, a Savior is born. That Savior who came to seek and save that which is lost, bind up the broken hearted, and bring life abundant.
Perhaps the way to get over the “Bah Hum Bug” is to spend less time looking at that which gave such pain and rather focus my eyes on the One who would bring much joy. Focusing less on the Christmas lights and more onto the “Light” of Christmas would enable me to let go of the painful years and cling to the “tidings of great joy” that was chorused through the heavens.
Being thankful for a roof over the heads of my family is not as important as being thankful for the One who covers all of us through the most precious gift I could ever receive: Salvation in Christ.
To you and yours, a truly Merry Christmas, from one who is now over “the Bug.”
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