It was a typical afternoon for my kids. They jumped off the bus, grabbed a snack, started their homework, got into a quick argument, watched the sun set, and so on and so forth. My afternoon was typical except for the 14 million other things added to my list that needed to be done before Christmas. I raced around the house cleaning, trying to pack, ordering gifts online, breaking up the argument, and checking on our Christmas cards. Somewhere between picking up pine needles and sorting through a mountain of laundry, my attitude of defeat set in and I became resentful at the season. My mind flooded with a thousand questions: Why do we do all of this? Why aren't the kids helping? Why can't this time of year be simple? Where are the socks? With each question my frustration grew.
Just before my anger reached its peak, however, something hit me in the back of the head. It was not a hard hit, but a gentle tap. Furiously, I ignored whatever it was and got back to work. A minute later it hit me again. I quickly flung around to find a long pointy paper airplane that had now been aimed to hit me twice. I braced myself as the frustration had found a channel through which to explode. As I picked up the plane I looked up to find the person who gave it flight. There, before me, was my 9-year-old son. He looked at me with his big adoring green eyes. A sudden softness rushed in and broke the ice inside, as the words, "slow down" echoed deep in my being. I slowed down enough to let him to speak first, and I am forever grateful that I did.
He said two words. "Open it." I pulled open the wings and unfolded the center. Inside was a picture. It was a snowy day picture with three little people on sleds and an evergreen tree floating in mid air. Beneath the picture was a scribbled message that read,
"Dear Mom, I just wanted to remind you how much I love you. I could not have asked for a better present than you for Christmas. Love Buddy."
I could not speak for a good two minutes. My eyes filled up with tears and all I could say was "Thank you." In that moment my son reflected for me a truth about this season that I had almost forgotten in my preoccupation with to-dos.
Though we put together gifts and work so hard to have the tinsel perfect on the tree or the holiday party with just the right hors d'oeuvres, the real gift is not in what we set up. It is the unexpected nature of the fact that a message of love for us came to soften the parts of our heart that were ice cold, and it came in a way that we could have never planned or anticipated. Sometimes it is not warm and fuzzy how the message gets to us, like the paper airplane hitting me in the head. Yet, if we rush through the holiday, or let the predictable nature of what we are supposed to do drive our purpose this season, then we might miss the gentle nudge to look up, soften our anger, and receive the message inside. If we were able to slow down and open ourselves to the idea that God sent us the greatest gift our hearts could have ever desired in a way that was totally unexpected, and He still pursues us with that same love today, I wonder if rather than saying we have finished checking off our list for Christmas this year, we would find ourselves in total gratitude with nothing to do or say but "Thank you." The Christmas story invites us to unwrap and receive the unexpected gift we did not deserve. Just as my son invited me to take my eyes off what I thought was important and enter into the wonder of experiencing the best gift he could have ever given me in the form of a paper airplane.
