Christmas isn't about Perfection

5 Carols for Christmas is almost at an end.  I have had such a grand time in this show. I love singing the tight harmony and dancing and being the know it all--been there, done that-Miss Q.

 It also helps that I'm home every night by 8:30 to be with Wayne and to help get Laila to bed.

At the end of the show when our perfect performance has been messed up and we have endured one debacle after another, Miss Q says to the distraught CarolAnn, "Christmas is not about perfection.  If anything it's about imperfection."
I love this line.  It rings true to me every night.
One fellow cast member said, "I don't get that line.  What does it even mean.?"
Well...... I have given a lot of thought to this and know that Christmas is truly about imperfection.  Let me explain.....

 As a mom, no matter how hard we try, we fall short every Christmas..... I know I feel I do.  Trying to find the perfect present, have the perfect family gatherings, have all of the kids and adults get along and stay in the holiday spirit is tough.  We were born to be real, not to be perfect.

When I ask my kids to talk about Christmas memories it's always the slightly imperfect ones that are brought to mind. For me too.  I remember forgetting a Bat Mobile for 4 year old Truman which was the only present he even wanted that Christmas.  It was a Christmas eve, midnight disaster...but  we all smiled through it.   Or the time I came home from singing at a Cole Collection event and all of the needles on my live Christmas tree were on the floor.  I was  so mad... I had baby-sat this tree for weeks.  I picked the tree up, ornaments and all and just threw it in the front yard.   We were done with trees for that year.   All imperfect times.

When I think of that first Christmas so long ago... I see many imperfections.
Christ came down to a humble manger.  There is no way this situation was perfect for Mary and Joseph let alone a new born baby.

I have a couple of nativities that have broken pieces in them.  We are particularly rough on Wise men in the Welch house.  We have 2 Wise men in 2 different nativities-- Wisemen with broken, glued on heads and broken  arms.  But I keep them and put them out every year to remind us of our own imperfections.

We are all imperfect and because Christ came down and through his most gracious Atonement we can be perfected in him.

 Christmas is about imperfection and it's wonderful.