Christmas Glue

Recently, in a classroom at our church’s pre-school, the tabletops looked like a disaster area. Boys and girls were making Christmas decorations. Everyone was busy with materials and glue. Some students were even covered in materials and glue. One student asked his teacher about glue. How is it made? Where is it made?

That tidbit of conversation made me think about glue from a different perspective. What bonds my life together? What keeps me from unraveling? Who is the glue in my life?

During Christmas, the pursuit of perfection can make a person become unglued. It all starts before Halloween when big box stores start displaying Christmas decorations. In the words of Barney Fife, those early unnecessary displays “just frost me!”

When I consider what holds me together, I think of my late parents. I grew up in a stable family with a mother and father who were strong role models for loving, caring, and providing for my sister and me.

In that framework was a weekly guarantee—going to church. Unless someone was “half-past dead,” we were in church on Sunday. I’m not sure that is always the case with families today.

Just before Christmas in 1972, my mother and sister were on their way home from running errands. A driver who ran a stop sign broadsided my mother and sister. The impact severely injured our mother. In the aftermath of the accident, one of the key factors in her recovery was her faith and the support of our church. That unwavering glue helped her to heal.

In my life, my wife is a vital piece in keeping me intact. Without my commander supreme, I’m in trouble. Her “to do lists” are a reminder of her attention to details, details that drive her professionally and in managing our home.

However, I’m certain my wife would tell anyone that the traditional expectations of Christmas and all its trimmings create extra stress. Christmas isn’t as simple as it once might have been.

For years, I was an Easter and Christmas church person. With the arrival of our children, we returned to church. Today church is part of my glue. In many ways, church is another family for me. Without a daily devotional, scripture reading, prayer, and interaction with my church family, I would unravel.

I can name people who continue to be a part of the glue in my life, but Christmas glue boils down to my heart. A time worn Christmas carol “In The Bleak Midwinter” states what the good Lord needs from me: “Yet what can I give Him, give my heart.”

Turbulent headlines from around the world can make our hearts bleak, but in the book of James, we are encouraged to: “be patient, strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.”

Undoubtedly, the commercial blitz of Christmas is a distraction for me.

Yet each Christmas, part of my Christmas glue is— hope. Hope that my heart can shift away and change from being overawed by the commercial marketing of Christmas.

To do this, perhaps I need to revisit the simple innocence of the chaos created by the children in that classroom with their glue and materials.

I wonder how these words from Kathleen Norris apply: “Disconnecting from change does not recapture the past. It loses the future.”

Maybe with guidance from those creative and curious pre-school children, I can use scissors, materials, and glue to figure out how to disconnect from the commercial weariness of Christmas.

Pursuing that change means means finding a balance from the past to ensure that in the future my heart is strengthened by the hope found in the glue of Christmas.

Author’s Note: On 12-17-14, this piece was submitted to the Richmond Times-Dispatch for publication consideration for the Faith and Values column. I believe it was published with submissions from other local contributors in the Christmas Day edition of the paper. The version posted here was edited for the blog post.