Broken in a box

Christmas marks the beginning of the end of the year and that means, for many of us, an occasion to pause and measure our growth in the past 12 months, be it measured in centimetres, wrinkles or experiences. Some facets of life will always surprise us with how quickly they change, while others insist on staying the same, making the passing of time a regret or a delight. But at a first glance, the past seems to have more flavour and weight, making the present paler and more diluted by comparison. 

When I was young, December was the longest month of the year, inflated with expectations of, “What presents am I going to get this year?” When I grew up, December became the year’s shortest month while the question dilated into an Excel spreadsheet, with multiple entries, sounding more like “What presents am I going to get this year for X, Y, Z?”.

Securing presents at this time of the year has turned into a fight to survive, what with the crowds of Christmas shoppers, the tidal waves of wrapping paper and long nights spent writing Christmas cards. Often, Christmas morning finds me exhausted and discontented with my attempts to be generous and caring. As I later realised, it’s because something was still missing—something that cannot be bought or manufactured. 

biscuits and wrapping paper

When I was young, December was the sweetest-smelling month of the year. Mum would bake us cinnamon scrolls and gingerbread biscuits, apple strudel and poppyseed baiglis. Now, I have grown up to be mum and it is up to me to stay up late to bake and decorate everyone’s favourite Christmas sweet treats. It is a yearly exercise to prove myself to be a good mum, filling the table with home-baked goods. But when all the sweets are gone and the platters are washed up, there is a certain yearning that lingers on, long after everyone is asleep, that no amount of marzipan can satisfy. 

Then, there are decorations. You cannot have Christmas without decorations, at least not in our family. When the kids were young, our Christmas tree was the biggest eucalyptus tree branch we could find on the floor of our nearest forest. Then we would drag it home, paint it, cover it with coloured yarn, baubles, lights and polaroid photos to make it part of the family. 

broken porcelain

As the kids grew up, our Christmas advanced to motorised accessories, laser projectors and hundreds of metres of outdoor lights, leaving behind the simple and meaningful; like the nativity scene figurines, waiting patiently in a cardboard box for baby Jesus to be born again in our living room. Underneath the crumpled lid, hidden from the tumult of the 21st century, laid the unperturbed porcelain family, wearing the same clothes and assuming the same attitude as in years past.

Baby Jesus was still a baby, forgetting to keep up with the time and grow up. His swaddling clothes, ceremoniously glazed, appeared impossibly white and rigid, hampering His growth, pausing time around Him. Next to Him, in the box, was Mary, leaning gently toward the pile of straw, missing an arm.

How did that happen? It wasn’t in the script. I looked around for the arm, still missing. How could I leave Mary to care for baby Jesus with only one arm? The tranquillity of the scene was forever crippled, as I was no porcelain healer. Joseph was there in one piece, as were the shepherds and the wise men. But Mary was broken and so was I, for I knew the end had come. I could not fill the void with any improvised prosthetic material and I could not leave baby Jesus with only a father to care for Him. One missing fragment broke the whole, sentencing it to the garbage, by no fault of its own. 

The Christmas wait became dimmed without baby Jesus on the windowsill, despite the thousands of lights pushing the night away. 

I stared into the glittering sky, thinking of a different reality, more real than the present and too often forgotten. It was a reality where I was the stubborn baby refusing to grow while clinging to my swaddling clothes and glue—all the while God was all grown up, trying to grow me into a better version of myself. I assumed Him to be cold and fragile, ready to chip or crack in a moment of negligence, just because I was like that. There I was, on my knees, trying to jam God into my recycled traditions, screaming in frustration because I couldn’t fold Him properly to fit in my box—even though He was the baby Jesus who grew up to fill the entire universe.

I saw myself then, the infantile parent, often treating Jesus as my baby God; expecting Him to stay wherever I put Him, waiting for me to open the lid of His existence when convenient for me; ready to discipline Him when disobedient, like not answering my prayers when or how I wanted Him to. I would get angry, thinking He was ignoring me and throw a temper tantrum. I would stop praying for a while, or quit reading my Bible to punish Him, to teach Him a lesson. It was obvious who needed to do the growing up. 

At times, I may have purposefully broken an arm, or a leg, as pretext for not going back to Him, waiting to be forgotten, discarded and dumped. 

But no matter how hard I tried, I could not convince God to throw me away. Why? Because He delights in repairing me—every time, no matter how many times I break. He has bandages for all kind of ailments: pride, self-sufficiency, anger, disbelief. No heart is beyond repair. He recycles the time, sometimes in scars, but always in growth. He undoes the self-willed fractures in our mind, filling the void with faith. It always starts small, with a seedling of hope.

Timid and hesitant at first, then determined and tough. The more I tug at it, with questions and dilemmas, the stronger it grows. Some years it grows slowly, others faster. This is the making of an organic, authentic and God-made faith with an indistinguishable flavour of peace, that cannot be bought or manufactured.  

Baby Jesus, the perfect Christmas seedling, was planted among us 2000 years ago, to grow and blossom into a life beyond time. Still reaching every soul, He permeates all cultures and traditions, uncontainable by human minds, but small enough to fit in human hearts. There, He breaks the clay, loosening the forces of life to germinate anew. He moulds and shapes the promise of the future into a daily present. He is the perfect kind of present. All wrapped up, just waiting to be opened.