"Where are you, Christmas?"

As my boys get older, I find myself newly resolved to present Christmas to them in such a way that they won't associate the holiday with the often materialistic slant screaming at us from our televisions, radios, and store windows. My husband and I stay up late and trade questions: How many gifts? How much to spend? What to read? What to do? What to say? I've bookmarked sites galore and carefully noted the traditions and practices of Christians I admire. Yet I still find myself feeling somewhat empty. I've taken gobs of notes, so to speak, but internalized very little of it. At this point, I'm going through the motions.

I have no problem with Easter. I had friends growing up who received gaming systems and the like "for" Easter, but in our family Easter was always a simple, joyous affair: My brother and I received modest baskets and the highlight of the day was always Easter brunch at my grandparents' house where we ate a feast to rival Thanksgiving's spread and looked forward to our Avo's trademark Rocky Road eggs. Like many other followers of Christ, Easter is the holiday that resonates most in my soul. It is the blindingly bright morning of celebration where the words "He is risen" send prickles down my spine and cause me to look wondrously about every room, as if He might appear in the doorway.

But Christmas. Despite the Gospel readings, the countless Nativity scenes observed, the sermons on every aspect from manger to Magi, I... I am having a hard time finding the Spirit in Christmas. After a childhood spent (by no fault of my parents) anticipating gifts rather than the momentous arrival of God in flesh, I keep trying to jumpstart some festive excitement without any fuel in the tank. In the evening, commercial after commercial tells me the reason for the season can be parked in a driveway with a gigantic bow, piled high beneath the tree, laid delicately in a velvet box.

All I desperately desire is to meet my Father in this moment and quietly envision the birth, minus any frills. I want to stand quietly in a corner and breathe deep the smell of divinity burning a steady, permanent spot into reality and all time and eternity. I want to behold the infant face of the Messiah and feel the crushing swell of emotions as I contemplate the road this sweet baby will travel.

I have no doubt that He will respond to my request and so I will keep my eyes on the door, straining to glimpse Adonai swaddled in cloths.