When Christmas doesn’t go as planned

When I was a high school student, I was part of an a cappella group of 16 singers called the Semiquavers. In the weeks before Christmas, we would slip out of classes and travel throughout Baltimore to perform in office lobbies, malls, and nursing homes.

Every December, the whole Glee Club from our school, Roland Park Country School, would go to the City Hall to perform, and the seniors in the Semiquavers—the Semis—would sing the brief solos of this extraordinary song.

I knew that when I was a senior, it would be my turn to sing one of the solos. I could only imagine how amazing it would be to be a sole voice singing in that space, sending this exquisite song through the air, capturing the attention of employees and visitors in the building.

It was a little terrifying, but it was also a moment I knew I could handle. I had been singing with the group and practicing for so long. I had sung those lines over and over, in the shower, in our practice space, and in our other performance venues. It couldn’t be that different in City Hall—and yet, I knew it would be. There was something magical about that large, circular space.

Then the week before the performance, I got a bad cold. I couldn’t sing; I could barely whisper. Instead, I stood and mouthed the words through the performance.

Life continued, and the world kept turning. This year, I found myself remembering how much I prepared for that moment—only to find that it wouldn’t be happening, and not because of anything within my control. Since then, many Christmases have been tinged with much greater disappointment or frustration or tension or grief. Just because it’s Christmas doesn’t mean everything goes according to plans.

This Christmas season presents its own challenges. After almost two years in the pandemic, we might have thought we were poised to launch a beautiful celebration of this wondrous feast. We have been looking forward to it since missing time with extended family last Christmas. We know how Christmas is supposed to go, and we’re ready to get back to normal.

But the pandemic cloud remains, and getting together with family and friends is still full of questions. Even without the pandemic, people have many other struggles and burdens they are carrying into this season. Christmas is not always the picture-perfect Christmas-card moment we believe it should be. Of course, it wasn’t that first Christmas either.

Mary and Joseph didn’t plan to journey to Bethlehem while the Blessed Mother was so close to giving birth. They didn’t expect to welcome their child in a stable, far from their home and families. They didn’t intend to flee to Egypt to protect their son, the Son of God. But they embraced the path that was presented to them. They moved forward with purpose, with faith, and with love.

I like to remember that even as they faced each challenge, they also uncovered so many moments of beauty and joy—in the welcome of an innkeeper who offered them space in his stable, in the faces of the awestruck shepherds, in the singing of the angels, and in the love they experienced and shared within their Holy Family. Through all of it, God was with them, just as He is with each of us today.

Whatever your Christmas looks like this year, I hope you find your way to the manger, and that you encounter moments of beauty, hope, and joy. Those small experiences are often the ones we treasure the most.

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