The holidays are messy. Families are messy. People are stressed and in perpetual pursuit of the recreated perfect memory that really was not but has become idealized. We do this to ourselves — did I spend too much or too little, debt, guilt, grief, depression, worry, frenzy, and then before we know it, the lights come down, the trash packed away, and the tree is packed away in the attic.

It does not have to be that way.

The first Christmas was a mess, too. In Bethlehem, a husband and very pregnant wife found no room at an inn. The mother had to give birth in a food trough and then spent the next several months entertaining random strangers swinging by to see her child. Many of us do not want people in our houses until everything is tidy, mopped, and dusted. Poor Mary was in a manger, then somewhere else, but definitely not her own home.

Christmas should be a simple season, but we complicate the mess. The messiness, however, will one day be made clean. Right now, however, we can do our small part of merely doing as Christ commanded — loving our neighbors. This holiday season, the perfect gift might be a smile and eye contact with some random person with an unknown burden who needs to see a friendly face. If you know of someone alone this holiday season, check in on them. Maybe invite them into your mess. Don’t clean up. Let them see you, too, live a messy life, not a perfectly curated social media life.

Do not burden yourselves with a quest for perfection this Christmas. Unburden yourself. The greatest gift was given the first Christmas. You can’t match it. Stop trying. But you can give the gift of kindness to others. In our crazy, messy world, that gift matters.

By Shaun Sima
https://chef-pocket.com/aboutme