What Millennials Understand about Christmas

Photo Credit: Julia Dent

The Christmas tree is up, decorated, and lit. Lights are strung outside, illuminating the dark and cold night. More lights are found creeping up railings, woven in garlands and tied with bows. Every surface is laden with something green, red, or sparkly. Stockings are hung. Nutcrackers dance across the piano. Santas gaze from the mantel. Snowmen tip their hats from the cupboard shelf. A Nativity is placed with an empty spot, awaiting the coming of the Christ child.

This is a home ready for Christmas.

But not my home.

No Christmas tree perfumes the air in my interfaith abode. No decorations bedeck the front stoop because neighborhood hoodlums might steal them. Although lights are creeping up the railing, no garland accompanies them, and they haven't been lit yet because electricity costs money. A few fir boughs are strewn around, with some Dollar Store pine cones and red ornament balls. No nutcrackers. No Santas. No snowmen. Just one hand-me-down stocking hangs on a Command Hook on the door. No hand-painted or carved - or even commercially bought - Nativity resides here.

But one, two, three candles have been burning each night. Four little votives, three purple and one rose, sit on decaying, foraged leaves. No wreath. No ribbon. No tapers. Yet, their light grows stronger and stronger each week, as Christmas gets closer and closer.

Being young and short on spending money forces Advent upon a person in a tremendous way. I am waiting, aching for Christmas. I long to sit in the shadow of a lit-up tree, surrounded by those I hold most dear. I want to read all my favorite Christmas books, and watch all my favorite Christmas movies. I want to place Baby Jesus between Mary and Joseph, because this season of Advent I have focused on his coming like never before. I have prayed, and watched, and waited by candlelight. With each new flame, the anticipation of all that Christmas brings has grown stronger and stronger.

Like Jesus, I am desperately waiting for the moment to come home, to be with my family. Christmas is a season of love. Jesus was welcomed lovingly by His parents, by shepherds, by wise men, by all creation. But this season of love starts December 25th. Until then we beautifully dwell in a season of anticipating that love, which has a merit all its own. The Christmas season lasts sixteen days, while Advent is four whole weeks. The joy of Christmas means nothing without the build up of desire Advent creates.

Millennials - particularly single ones - have an incredible opportunity to understand Advent and Christmas on a deeper level. For them, "without" can be a powerful word. Without copious decorations, without the responsibility of hosting, without children to buy presents for, without permanence, they can focus on and truly understand waiting to be with. With their parents, with their families, with presents under a tree, with Jesus. And Jesus is waiting for the very same thing, which is why we call him Emmanuel, God with us. He aches to be with us so much he joined in our humanity. He waits for us to be with Him again, forever in eternity.

Christmas is a pinnacle that requires more than a seasonal change to reach. It is a celebration of union, reunion, giving, and receiving - receiving what one has been waiting for. Jesus. Family. A Christmas tree. The ham. All these things and more will taste sweeter because of the wait and the without.

"I'll be home for Christmas" has never been so poignant.