The following guest post is exactly what I needed to hear today. Monte Peterson from thefoodsmith lives in Hong Kong with her family, and it gives me shivers to read her perspective here:

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Chris-mis Everywhere

It stabs me a little every time I hear his sweet voice lisp “Chris-mis!” He’s so excited, but what he points to as he says it are elaborately decorated trees, mall displays of Santa, gilded bells, gifts and garlands. To him, “Chris-mis” is everywhere.

This is our second Christmas in Hong Kong, our home for the last year and a half. Friends often ask if they “do” Christmas in Hong Kong. Yes, I say, laughing. Hong Kong is the shopping capital of the world–of course they “do” Christmas.

I have for many years tried to create a distinction between Advent and Christmas in our home … waiting to decorate, waiting to sing Christmas carols. We lived for so long in rural areas without a tv that it was easy to ignore the commercial aspects of the season.

But now we are in Hong Kong, where we walk through malls everyday. And as much as I hate to hear my son look at a snowman and call him “Chris-mis” I am a little embarrassed to admit that the decorations are a comfort, even the tacky ones. “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” brings a tear to my eye and a beautiful store display of a fireplace hung with stockings can stop me in my tracks.

We really are quite content with life in Hong Kong. It’s just that this time of year brings on wave after wave of homesickness, and so the nolstalgia and sentimentality of the mass-produced Christmas gets me. I know that my decorating and baking are as much a bid to stave off loneliness as they are a means of preparing for and celebrating the Incarnation, but I don’t know what to do with that.

The truth is, this year we have something in common with Mary and Joseph–themselves far from home–and with the millions of refugees and immigrants in our world. Moreover, while the feeling of homesickness may be particularly acute for those of us literally far from the land of our birth, being homesick is simply part of the human condition. We are strangers in a strange land, every one of us homesick for the coming Kingdom.

And so we’re not ignoring the (purely secular) “Chris-mis” out there–we’re just inviting Christ into it, to hallow and redeem our baking, our singing, our “making merry.” If the incarnation is about nothing else, it is about Jesus coming to be with us right where we are, even in a mall or a tiny flat in a crowded city.

We are eating lots of traditional meals, even though the imported ingredients are costly. And we are baking our favorite Christmas cookies in a tiny toaster oven. We have more friends here than ever who have never heard the story of Jesus’ birth, so we are offering lots of hospitality, welcoming people into our celebrations. To paraphrase Frederick Buechner, my need to be festive meets the world’s need to be included, and there is great joy.

Mostly, I’m resisting the urge to turn inward and only create something special for my family, and in so doing, I find that my son is right. “Chris-mis” is everywhere.

Tomorrow marks our first anniversary but I’d wager he doesn’t even realize it.

Before I knew his name, I had great affection for this stranger.  He was bold, well spoken, imaginative, thoughtful and creative…but mostly he simply cherished his wife.  He knew her so well he fashioned a gift for her that would curl her smile in an instant and twirl her spirit into buoyant pirouette, a love bounty that overflowed her heart and splashed goodness and wisdom and laughter and life onto those who celebrated with him.

Some would say our meeting was chance, but I don’t buy that for a skinny minute–I’m not a believer in coincidence.  A friend introduced us—mainly to share his gift idea and garner support for it—but I’m convinced she was a Divine conduit, a vessel of God’s choosing, to seed a friendship that would quickly blossom and spread at the speed of  dandelion wished upon and blown.

Eventually I would meet his wife, a story of its own too long for a telling in this space; the short of which, ours is a Jonathan and David friendship, instant and to the marrow.  We understand each other from the inside out, and best of all, have sealed it with tears of pain and laughter.  Mostly laughter.

It really doesn’t make sense if I think about it too much, so I let go my demand of explanation and with heartfelt thanks slip it into the column of The Mystery and Kindness of God.  Seth and Amber are precious to me.

What does this have to do with Christmas Change?  Everything.

The concept of Christmas Change has been percolating in the hearts and minds of (I believe) many for a while:  doing more for those in need—true need—and indulging less for those of us who have much.  I consider “those who have much” to be just about everyone who’ll stumble across this post.  To be fair, I understand “much” is relative, but after having the luxury of traveling to India for ten days and observing extreme poverty, to know I can make in one day what it might take months for a worker there to earn…yeah…my paradigm of “much” shifts and I realize I can get by on a whole lot less and make a difference for someone else in the process.

Following the Mother Letter project, my friendship with Amber and Seth has only deepened; our conversations always end with a comma, and when we speak again, it’s right where we left off.  It’s only natural that we share those things weighing heavily on our hearts, and one day when I was chatting with Seth, it just happened.

Christmas Change was born.

It wasn’t as dramatic or world changing as, say, the King of Kings and Creator of All Things shrinking to a size a mama could nestle in her arms, but we knew it was something big enough we couldn’t keep to ourselves.

Oooooh, how I could go on and on and on and ON, but there’s time for that later.  A chorus of beautiful voices will be sharing their stories soon.  For now we simply want to invite you to join us.  To think upon these things.  To consider what ChristmasChange means for you and your family.  To take those small steps that over time cover a lot of ground.  To reject a culture of consumerism and self indulgence, that yes, has even permeated the Christian community.  To incarnate Christ in the everyday.  To love lavishly the unlovable, in heart first, then in word and deed.

Your children are watching…

The world around you is waiting…

Y’all, it’s gonna be good. You don’t wanna miss out on the sweetness that awaits.

A season of change.  A lifetime of return.

For eternity.