This Christmas will be...

This Christmas was a unique one.

My brother and I overslept and missed the Christmas service (all in Korean). A few hours later, we along with the majority of our extended family here in Philly went to help my mom clean out half of her store (for the renter who will be taking over in January). There were disagreements about our plan of attack, but when we finally stood together as a united front, I thought to myself,

This - as disfunctional as my family may be - is what Christmas is about, family.

Later that evening, my brother and I headed over to our friends' home, a place where you are never turned away, but always welcomed with food and laughter and a moody (but loveable) mutt named Peanut. The house was full, as usual, with friends and food. Some of us gathered upstairs to watch the VH1 marathon of "Hits of the '80s" then the "90s", all the while reminiscing over who and where we were when these songs first aired.

Towards the end of the night, a friend with a sense of wanderlust in her voice confessed, "It doesn't feel like Christmas anymore." And in ways, she was right. Sadly, Christmas does not hold the same sense of excitement as it did in our younger years when we would eagerly hope for gifts from Santa and the sound of reindeer on the roof.

Santa is no more, buried deep within the crevices of past childhood memories.

It saddened me to think that we'd reduced this special day to yet another consumer-driven occasion in our consumer-driven lives. I, too, had/have forgotten the awesomeness of what took place on this day thousands of years ago in a manger in Bethlehem, the home of David and had to agree with her, it didn't feel like Christmas anymore.

I think back on the early believers who'd clung to the hope of a Messiah in the midst of persecution and dank situations. Treated as second-class people. Under foreign rule. Forever concerned with decrees and ordinances and the watchful eyes of Big Brother Pharisees and Saduccees.

They knew there would be freedom from all of this one day. They hoped for it in their own lives for thousands of year and through thousands of generations.

For the faithful, each moment was one step closer to the realization of this hope. But many, still, lived in discouragement, their patience exasperated, their expectations unfulfilled.

But hope did come in the form the son of a lowly carpenter and his young wife.

And even though we know this Messiah came and lived and died and rose, we still struggle to hope and remember Him. We half-heartedly celebrate or hang our heads low because the feelings of childhood no longer linger here.

We are older now. Our struggle is no longer with fighting the urge to peek under the tree, it's in trying to focus on HIM and not us. To celebrate HIM, not our new toys. To remember HIM. To tear into the miraculous, awe-inspiring gifts HE brings.

We need that sense of wonder. We were made for it and wait for it once more.