Vineyard Women

by Trish Wright

Did I tell you yet about last year, when I quit Christmas? I did. I just totally threw in the towel on Christmas. For those parties I couldn’t get out of, I went kicking and screaming. I didn’t bake any cut-out cookies. I sacked stocking stuffers. I deliberately showed up to our DC party without a white elephant gift, just to be ornery.

In my very postmodern and retrospective analysis of my psyche with regard to Christmas, I liken it to the imprint of a pressure canner lid on the kitchen ceiling. I like to can green beans in the summer, and I forever live in fear of my gauge malfunctioning and the pressure inside the canner causing an explosion in my kitchen, green beans catapulted everywhere. I knew a woman to whom this had happened, and her husband had to pry the pressure canner lid from her ceiling, where it had embedded itself following the explosion.

Likewise, my Christmas meltdown last year was little more than an explosion resulting from excessive pressure. Pressure to decorate pristine cut-out cookies. Pressure to have the shopping done by Thanksgiving. Pressure to look cute, be sociable, and arrive bearing an attractive appetizer at the endless string of torturous parties. Just read the women’s magazines, or watch HG TV. Christmas is . . .clove-studded oranges, handmade gifts, new clothes, fashioning wreaths with greenery from your yard, surrounded by your enchanted, smiling family. Isn’t it?

So while the pressure was increasing, my gauge was malfunctioning. An unfortunate combination. Normally, my gauge for what is appropriate and inappropriate for me is Jesus. But I had not been properly maintaining my gauge, mainly because—how do you like this?—I didn’t have time. Maintaining my relationship with Jesus takes time, and that relationship is not based on performance, which is what our culture says I should be honing at this time of year. So I sacked a grace-based relationship with him for a performance-based one with the world, and thus had absolutely no idea what Jesus’ thoughts were on how I should celebrate his coming into this world. Instead, being the genius I am, I took the world’s thoughts on the subject. It certainly seemed easier than reading the Bible; and I could even do it online.

So with increasing pressure and no gauge, it wasn’t long before I hit the ceiling. In a rage of tears and drama, I quit Christmas. And there was my husband, prying me off: “You know, we really don’t need to take four dozen hand-rolled crepes to every party. Jesus was born even if you show up with a preservative-laden fruit tray from Kroger.”

Really?!? John 3:16 is true without clove-studded oranges on my mantel and hand-knitted socks for everyone on my Christmas list? Well, what a relief. Perhaps this year, before embarking on my holiday “canning project,” I should spend some time maintaining my gauge. After all, being pried from the ceiling with a basic truth from Christianity 101 was not exactly my finest hour.