Beating the Christmas Cinderella Syndrome – One Day at a Time!

Before the school supplies have been broken out of their packages, manufacturers start pumping the airwaves with propaganda about the perfect toy, the perfect diamond ring to prove your love and the perfect food for the perfect, warm fuzzy family celebrations!

Our minds race with too many decisions: What to get for the person who has everything (probably almost everyone on your list), where to get the money for those perfect gifts. What to wear, how to lose that extra ten pounds so you can get into last year's dress, if you can handle the anxiety of wearing last year's dress! Talk about STRESS! Someone has defined "anxiety" as the inability to cope with stress. Is anxiety the context in which you are living out a "holiday" that represents peace and stability to the Christian world? Are you experiencing the Cinderella Syndrome, wishing a Prince Charming would swoosh in and swish you away to a place where every one else does the cooking, cleaning, baking, buying, wrapping, and worrying?

If so, take a deep breath and consider incorporating some of these ideas into your every day life and beat the Christmas Cinderella Syndrome, one day at a time.

Don't Miss Christmas!
The night of the death of our son, Mark, we fleetingly thought about Christmas. How will we ever celebrate Christmas again? We wanted to skip right over to January. But instead, we leaned into the pain and did things a little differently, in order to honor the One Who gave us hope in the midst of death. We describe how we faced this difficult time in our special broadcast "Preparing for Christmas in the Midst of Grief".

Since losing our son, it has been easy to resist the secular view of Christmas. It's not about toys, Santa Claus, lights and food. It's not even about you or me. It's about the glory of God! Be intentional about how you will express His glory in the midst of this broken world.

Too many people miss Christmas because of exhaustion or worry over extended credit cards. Prayerfully consider your gift giving and estimate what you can spend. Ask God to help you be creative. This might be the year to exchange names with extended family. How about a gift with a message?

Share the Workload!
In our second inner-city pastorate, we invited the whole church to come to our house every Christmas Eve. This traditional celebration became the high point of Christmas for many of the dear friends in our church family. This night was our gift to our congregation so I refused all offers of help. "I could do it - no problem!" My good intentions sometimes ended badly. One year by the time our guests arrived, I was smiling on the outside but knew that sleep would elude me because of all the unfinished Christmas wrapping that still waited. Another Christmas Eve our four and five year old children spent most of the day sitting on chairs because I had so much to do and they were misbehaving! I missed Christmas that year, and so did they.