Forty years ago I received a Christmas gift which has been close to my desk as a conversation piece ever since: an antique kaleidoscope, a fascinating brass tube that one can shake, and, with a twist of the tube, make myriad different patterns and pictures from the same piece of glass.

That gift is a good reminder that Christmas itself is in many ways like a kaleidoscope. It’s a reminder that if we’re trying to hold on to the old traditions, we may be disappointed. It’s no wonder that when the 45-day season on the calendar of our American culture leading up to  December 25 finally runs out on Christmas Day, we can feel wrung out as our spirit of expectancy evaporates, sometimes leaving disappointment or regret.

It’s better that our Christmas expectations be something like a kaleidoscope, fashioned from the mixture of an unchanging story and our changing personal circumstances. The story has many facets, and their depth, variety and beauty attest to its magnificence. And each Christmas our families are one year older, and we approach Christmas differently – depending on what is happening with us and how ready we are to receive some new gifts into our lives. Awareness and readiness, I think, are the keys.

As the Cheshire Cat says to Alice in Alice in Wonderland, if you don’t know where you want to get to, it doesn’t much matter which way you go.

If you don’t know what you’re looking for, it doesn’t matter where you look. There are too many people who don’t know what they’re looking for, so they have little in the way of expectations. They know that if we expect what used to be or what has never been we are opening ourselves up to disappointment. It is time to reshape our expectations and be ready to be receivers in a new way (which is in fact an old way).

For Christmas is not just about what has been, it is about what is, and what is becoming. Christmas is so astounding that maybe the best we can do is to sing about it! For it is about the birth each day, tomorrow and forever, of a new creation, of which we are a part. Christmas is about what God is doing for us now, if we will let him.

Perhaps the rooms of our lives, which seemed to be pretty full, are not filled with what we need the most. Christmas is about something we have never expected enough: That the total reality of God made flesh dwells among us and is with us –  not just then, but now, and forever.
The Rev. Elton Smith is assistant rector at St. James’, Potomac.