That Time (last Sunday) I Left Christmas Caroling in Tears
Ah, December.
How's that song go? "If we make it through December / Everything's gonna be alright, I know".
Any month of the year ask me how I feel about this month and I'll tell you it's one of my favorites. Advent is definitely my favorite liturgical season (as a proper Christian, I should probably say it's Eastertide. Eastertide doesn't come with crackling fires and cozy blankets, though.)
And then the real December arrives. The one everyone is actually living and my heart shrinks a couple of sizes. The crux of the tension lives on the pages of our calendar. It's not that we have so much to do anymore. In this season of our lives, we've got just the right amount of things to do to prepare for a festive Christmas.
No, the problem is that we have too many places to be and the only place I want to be is in my living room. The whole world wants to gather in December and I can't blame them. It's cold and we're all feeling the frosty breeze of loneliness for people who are no longer here and who never showed up in the first place. We're all carrying the burden of unmet hopes and dreams and we want to be able to fill each room with just enough people to help us shoulder the weight.
I'm not immune to these feelings, but my preferred method for dissipating sadness is to build a blanket fort and hide. Between me and all the voices of my ideal season, there's not much room for anyone else.
So I've got my ideals and my reality but that's not even the whole problem. The big fat elephant that sits on my chest each December (usually wearing a garish Santa hat) is guilt and he's a beast.
Ideal, Reality, Guilt: two's company and three's a crowd. And really, we're talking about four because Guilt usually brings along Overdeveloped Sense of Responsibility who keeps flitting about the room tsk-tsking at everyone. She doesn't weigh much, but she is almost impossible to shake.
I'm really telling you all of this as a feeble explanation about crying during Christmas caroling Sunday night. In between the "fa la la la la" and the "laughing all the way", I was clutching the car keys in my coat pocket for a quick escape when I couldn't take one more minute of "we wish you a Merry Christmas".
The thing is I want to be the kind of person who stands outside stranger's houses singing even when they shut the door and turn off their lights. I want to look cute with a fluffy scarf and snowflakes on my nose and eyelashes. I want to stand in the room crowded with cheerful carolers blowing on my hot cocoa and laughing about the new stories we just created together.
On Sunday, I realized Guilt had bullied me out of my cozy bed (oh, the glory of a Sunday afternoon nap), Overdeveloped Sense of Responsibility shooed me into my boots, and Ideal kept hollering at all of us that this was going to be the hap-hap-happiest Christmas caroling party since Bing Crosby danced with Danny- freakin'-Kaye!"
And Real Me started to panic. Real Me had just spent two weeks packing, moving, and unpacking an entire house. Real Me had just hosted ten people for a Saturday morning Advent retreat, helped in the preschool Sunday School class on Sunday morning, and engaged in a dozen or so conversations (seemingly simultaneously!) at a church fellowship lunch. Some of the conversations were cheery life updates, some were meeting brand new people (with Ideal Me going into an existential crisis that I wouldn't be an appealing enough pastor's wife for this new family to stay), and some of the conversations were heart-shattering updates from church members living through some of their worst nightmares.
So, yep, Real Me was tired. Real Me needed an afternoon to sit in quiet rest and maybe even completely unplug from reality with Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye for an hour or two. Most of the time, I'm learning, Real Me like the Real God uses the quietest voice in the room. Listening carefully for those still, small voices requires a certain kind of humility that Overdeveloped Sense of Responsibility despises.
On Sunday night I didn't listen. The Real God is gracious and abounding in mercy so that for a few key moments I was able to enjoy the goodness of my church family introducing ourselves (however awkwardly and, occasionally, off-key) to our new neighborhood. At a few houses, I was able to quiet the panic of my exhausted self long enough to make eye contact with a neighbor long enough to introduce myself and say with simple love "My name's Tamara and we're from Church of the Apostles. Thanks for opening your door to us and Merry Christmas."
In the goodness of our Creator God, there were enough moments of true laughter echoing my trumped-up "laughing all the way" that helped my heart grow a few sizes larger that night. There's also the memory of the two little diapered girls, noses pressed up against the glass as our carol leader (who, helpfully, looks like Santa's Greek fisherman brother) audaciously opened the door to hand them candy canes. There's also the memory of the old, lonely man rocking his chihuahua back and forth to the rhythm of The First Noel I'll be savoring for the rest of December. There was the lady with the African accent singing along with us in her bathrobe and the family gathered in their foyer bedecked not with Christmas but gilded vases of silk flowers and India fabric.
I guess that all of this added up together and spilled over as tears while I sat in the parking lot, hoping Brian wouldn't take too much time sipping cocoa with parishioners inside. It was the exhaustion and tension of all the different voices fighting inside my head, yes. Also, it was the awkward beauty of it all. My scrunched up heart couldn't take it in and I needed the catharsis of a good cry. The contrast of the joyful carolers bickering a bit under our breath about how many times it's acceptable to knock on a stranger's door and then the stark vulnerability of the people who opened their doors and gave us an unedited peek into their homes and lives.
It was all a bit too much for the Real Me to hold in my over-saturated heart. The one still lingering in sadness and prayer for the heart-breaking stories I'd heard over my cold plate of lasagna at lunch. In God's grace, the tears exposed my frailty and expanded my heart. I'll carry these realizations into my blanket fort this week and give thanks for the loving embrace of my Father and the good hearts of my church community. I'll give thanks for the fact that so many are called to wander the streets singing Christmas carols in a world that's almost forgotten such a tradition exists. In the future, I'll probably give Guilt, Overdeveloped Sense of Responsibility, and Ideal Me the night off and hum along from the quiet of my living room.