Can we agree that a forty-foot tall singing Christmas tree is not a requirement for Christmas?

That feels like it will be controversial.

“Who doesn’t love the choir, the orchestra, the music?” I can hear the voices of people I know and care about. I can hear some of you.

In our minds and hearts and living rooms and front lawns and church sanctuaries, we build massive expectations of what Christmas has to look like.

Most of which have nothing to do with any of the comings or presence of God.

And in our heads and voices and photos and messages we build subtle expectations of how others should live in order to experience Christmas. Most of those expectations, of snow and a bleak midwinter and the presence of turtledoves, ignore geography and cultures and native vegetation.

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As I’m writing these words, I’m listening to Handel’s Messiah. The recording is from 1955, the vinyl I’m listening to was probably issued in 1974, about the time I was in a community choir, singing these words.

For years, I didn’t listen to this work. I was too busy with the church activities, the church business, of Christmas. We had services to plan, programs to write, media to create. Every year had to be fresh and creative, bigger and better, more emotional, more compelling.

It was exhausting.

A few years back, our daughter, Hope, started singing with the Fort Wayne Philharmonic Chorus. They sang Messiah. I came back.

That said, there are many people I know who wouldn’t love the choir, the orchestra, the music. If I expect you to expect Messiah as the measure of Christmas, that’s a burden too great to lay on you.

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I’m trying to end this post with a play on words, that we shouldn’t let our expectation of Messiah undermine our hope in and for Messiah. Instead, I’ll end with a promise to return tomorrow.