Kimberlee Conway Ireton

A friend tells me her girls have decided not to give or receive Christmas presents this year. “They want to take the money we planned to spend on gifts for each other and use it to help people who really need it,” she says.

So one afternoon, they pored over catalogs from Compassion Intenational and World Vision. Her youngest wanted to give mosquito nets and bees. Her oldest sidled up to her after they’d chosen their gifts and said, “Mom, can we do this again next year?”

My friend smiles as she recounts this. “I think we just created a new Christmas traditon. I don’t think we’re ever going to go back to giving each other gifts.”

I smile, but weakly. I want to be happy for my friend, glad that her children are so generous, so joyful in their giving, so spiritually sensitive.

But the ugly truth is, I’m jealous. My kids didn’t decide to forego gifts in order to celebrate Jesus’ birthday with the least of these.

No, while my friends’ kids were busy studying gift catalogs for the needy, Jack and Jane were huddled together working on Jane’s book, a bit of pulp fiction called “Death Canyon: Secret of the Zombies.”

I don’t know where she gets this stuff. It’s not like we watch a lot of Day of the Undead around here. Apparently, we don’t need to. My kids come up with the undead on their own. I suppose that’s spiritual sensitivity, of a sort.

Just not the sort I want.

*****

A morning later in the week, I see the moon from the dining room window, a crescent hanging between fig branches, pillowed on the deep velvet blue of dawning sky. And I think, how lovely.

Then I read Ann Voskamp’s words about the moon and stars, and my heart squeezes tight with longing.

With, let’s face it, envy.

When I looked at the moon, I saw, well, the moon. I did not see the wise men or the wonder of Christ. But Ann Voskamp did. She always does, her sacramental eyes seeking – and seeing – Emmanuel everywhere she looks.

The green-eyed monster that lurks in my belly raises its Hydra-head once more, and hisses in my ear, “You don’t see as deeply as she does. You don’t write as beautifully. It’s no wonder her book is a New York Times bestseller and yours is out of print.”

The words echo. Out of print out of print out of print.

It is hard to stop the onslaught because the monster speaks truth, hard to remember that it is a twisted, coiled truth designed to accuse and demean and divide. And even when I tell it to Shut UP, still its ugly words ripple in my mind.

It is hard these days to look at my life and not wish certain things were different. I wish my book were still in print. I wish I had another book contract. I wish I had more time to write, to practice writing, to work at becoming a better writer.

I wish I already were a better writer.

I wish I didn’t have endless piles of laundry to fold, that my dishes didn’t pile up in the sink like some food-encrusted tower of Babel, that I had an au pair to watch my kids so I could take a nap or run to the grocery store without four kids in tow, that I had a full-time housekeeper, that my parents didn’t live so far away.

But such wishing only encourages the green-eyed monster to hiss louder in my ears, to take up residence in my eyes and distort my vision until I see the people I love with loathing because they have something I don’t, something I want, or because they’re not who I wish they were.

This is not who I want to be.

*****

In the dark of our bedroom, before we fall asleep, I tell Doug that I’m struggling, that right now, other people’s lives look so much better than mine, richer, easier, more meaningful, more organized, more energized, more whatever-it-is-I’m-not.

He nods in the dark and spoons me close. “I’m sorry it’s hard,” he says. We lie curled together in silence a moment. Then, softly, he says, “Is there anything about your life that you’re grateful for?”

I sigh, loudly. He’s right, of course. There’s much I’m grateful for. “Our kids,” I say. “Their health. You. Our house. Lighting the Advent wreath at dinner tonight. Getting to see Lynne today. Bed. Sleep.”

The list goes on, and on, this list of gifts, of grace in the life I have. I fall asleep counting my blessings.

It’s so White Christmas.

****

After dinner, we’re cleaning up the kitchen, Jack and I. He’s telling me about his writer’s block. “I’m just not sure how I’m going to get John and Sara out of the giant’s fist, Mama, and I can’t write anything until I figure that out.”

We toss around a few ideas until Jack lights on one he thinks will work. “You know, Mama,” he says as he puts away a serving bowl, “sometimes you should work on your novel that you haven’t worked on in a long time.”

I nod and rinse off a plate. “You’re right. I should.” I slide the plate into the dishwasher. “But I’m not sure when I would. You and Jane and the boys take up a lot of my time.”

“We should have a mother-son writing date,” he says. “We could go to a coffee shop, and I can work on my book, and you can work on yours.”

I grin at him. “That’s a great idea.”

“And when Jane is old enough to work on her book without us having to spell all the words for her, she can come, too.”

It’s not a gift for Jesus, exactly, this writing date. It doesn’t matter. It’s a gift to me, that he thought of it, that he knew I would enjoy it, that he’s even willing to let his sister come (when she can spell, of course). It’s yet another gift in the life I have.

I wipe crumbs off the counter. The granite glistens in the glow from the overhead lamps, and I smile.

Tags: Christmas