Creating Wonder

Christmas has always been my favorite holiday. As a child, I loved the cookies and movies more than the presents. My favorite thing on Christmas morning was the orange in my stocking. I don’t remember believing in Santa, but I did believe in the wonder and magic of the season. I would help my mom make some of the cookies, then suddenly tins of cookies seemed to appear all over the kitchen. I would watch my mom put up the 

Bonnie Piovesan

tree, then suddenly it was decorated and full of light. Wrapping paper and parties sprang out of nowhere! If I happened to be living somewhere where it snowed, and it snowed, my heart and soul were transported to Bedford Falls. 
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Growing up, Christmas was more about the Season than a Savior. I knew people celebrated Christmas because it marked the birth of Jesus 2000 years earlier. For me, that event was very much in the past and had little to do with my present celebrations. 

My first two Christmases as a young married woman still held that wonder of the season feeling. Everything felt magical, even though I was broke and we had about five ornaments for a 7-foot tree, which I was confident would fit in our tiny house. My hubby and I spent our entire paycheck, all $300 of it, buying gifts for each other!  I laughed when my baby daughter ate the paper, and I was thrilled to have two households to visit. The gifts were not the main event; it was still the cookies and movies and now a growing family. 

In July of 1996, my husband and I moved to Minnesota. We had no family or friends there, which was unheard of in both of our families. Why we would choose to move to a place where we knew no one at all was beyond their thinking. As December drew near that year, I was confused that the wonder of the season was not sweeping me off of my feet. We even had snow, and lots of it! I was at a loss as to why this Christmas felt so flat and unmagical. 
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We dragged home a tree and set it up, no feels. I bought a million pounds of butter ready to make cookies, not a blip on the feeling meter. I looked around my little apartment, and saw my 18-month-old daughter playing on the floor. The realization hit me like a truck. If there was to be that wonder of the season feeling, I, as the mom, had to create it. 

I am pretty sure I sobbed myself to sleep that night. My childhood was officially over; the full weight of adulthood had fallen on me. I laugh about it now, considering that marriage and motherhood had not brought on the same weight as that moment. Up until that day, I still lived between the world of girlhood and womanhood. I was faced with the choice to create wonder for my children or not to. So, the next morning I woke up, got out the butter, and put on some Christmas music.

About two batches in, I realized my mom’s cookie recipes were not producing the numerous cookie tins of my childhood. I was trying to create wonder, but “good lord, did it really cost this much to make cookies?” I found that I hated every 10-12 minutes of the cookie timer. I asked myself, “What the heck am I doing?” That’s when the truck backed up and hit me again. 

The whole story of Christmas flooded my mind. I saw a young couple desperately looking for a room, and being rejected over and over! A shabby stable and two parents trying to figure out what to do with this Child called Emmanuel, God with Us. Shepherds running into town to find this baby they were told about, and see if it was all true. A star shining out in the darkness over some backwater town long ago. I was faced with a choice again. I could go on creating small batches of wonder with my pricey butter, or I could sit in awe of something truly wonderful. 

I glanced over at my little girl eating a cookie, and all of the emotion of the Story flooded my heart. Everything changed in that moment. My celebration had real meaning, and I wanted to share that wonder with my daughter. I looked at my meager batches of cookies that would be eaten and gone. My sparsely decorated tree would soon be taken to the dumpster, and the small box of baubles would be stuffed in the back of the closet. Those were temporary and things I had to create. The reason for the celebration was not dependent on me for creation; all I needed to do was soak it all in.

It is all too easy to get caught up in the rush of creating wonder around our holidays. The price of butter may rise and fall, and the movies get cheesier every year. For me, it's the Christmas of 1996 that sits in my mind as the most difficult and the most beautiful Christmas I have experienced. The season had finally become secondary, and the wonder of a Savior became the celebration. 
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In His Name, Bonnie