"I was the worst of them all..." Like Paul, I was focused on the WRONG thing at Christmas
How losing everything we owned changed the way I decorate for Christmas, and 'The Healing Home' series coming in 2025
It wasn’t a house fire, but it felt like one. In 2021, our family lost everything. We lost our dream home, our dream property, our belongings, our health, the lives of our dog (make that plural once we discovered what was plaguing us), my art studio and business, my husband’s job, the understanding and support of many friends and family1, and our health. You can throw our sanity on that list, too, because most days it felt like we also lost that. We lost everything, moved into a hotel, and had to start our lives over from scratch at ground zero, sick, and broke.
Hidden toxic mold destroyed our lives and continues to do so even to this day2, but this post is not about that story; it’s about this strange realization that came to me, only this Christmas, after the ‘great loss’ occurred in our lives.
That realization was this: for the first time since I had been an adult decorating my home, some twenty years now, I had zero stress about decorating for Christmas this year. Zip. I also noticed how much more time I created for myself and family because I was not fretting over Christmas decorations and making our home look perfect. I got curious about this and the reason was clear: we had so few Christmas decorations.
When we lost everything, we lost the boxes of ornaments, gathered since my childhood. If you were a fly on the wall in my living room at Christmases past, you would see clearly that I was a little OCD about ‘my’ Christmas ornaments. I say ‘my’ because I lorded over these things. They were each meticulously wrapped in paper, kept in separate compartments, so they wouldn’t break or get tangled with others. I had to touch each one…cherish it, treasure the memories of it, fluff and fix their hooks, and hand them to the appropriate child who would take the best care to hang it, all while trying to hide, and thus, not spoil, my OCDness about the art of decorating the tree for my kids. Why? Because I treasured these ornaments with my whole heart. I treasured all of my Christmas decorations.
I had a swag and garland for nearly every doorway, window frame, railing, and mantel.
I would get the ladder out to hang snowflakes from the ceiling with clear fishing line so it would look like it was snowing sparkling wonder in our living room.
I hand-made tiny Santa hats to adorn various Nutcrackers and reindeer and other Christmas friends who entered our home one month a year solely for the whim and wonder of Christmas.
I went overboard with my decorations and I can recall how much time and energy decorating took. I don’t remember it feeling like a chore. I liked it, in fact, and got great joy from transforming our home in this way, but what I didn’t realize was how much of a distraction all of it became.
As a Christian, the Christmas season is a sacred, holy time to prepare our hearts for the celebration of the birth of our savior and King, Jesus, the greatest gift ever given.
How can we prepare our hearts when we are so busy preparing our homes? Can trying to create a magical, wondrous home filled with sparkly boughs and cherry-cheeked Santas diminish the most magical, wondrous reason for the season? In a world full of bright, sparkling things, isn’t it the Christ-follower who is called to keep our eyes fixed, avoid worldly distractions, and keep our hearts attuned to His? I’m wondering if the over the top Christmas decorations are a sneaky way of distracting us?
Maybe I only speak for myself here; I can already sense a few folks will be squirming in their seats reading this, but I can confidently say this is true for me. Having been through a ‘great loss’ and not having the sparkly boughs and decorations to put up for the past few years, I can see how I’ve created more margin in my Christmas season to reflect on the real meaning of Christmas. I can see how, in the past, the stress and anxiety I would put on myself to decorate and get the house perfect, or the ornaments perfect, or the garlands perfect is not how Jesus would want me to feel leading up to Christmas, and how easily all of that distracted me from the real meaning of Christmas. I feel a little like Paul when he said (paraphrasing 1 Timothy 1:15 here), ‘I realize I was the worst of them all…’. Like Paul needed Jesus to change his heart, I needed our “great loss” to first realize, then, change mine.
THE long awaited-for King of the Entire World entered our world in the most lowly way any person ever could - in a manger. Instead of fluffy teddy bears awaiting him in his neatly arranged crib with fresh linens, many believe3 he had real animals, and their smells, and their feces, and hay, straw, and dirt. Zero pomp and circumstance.
There was a star shining over the fields where the shepherds watched over sleeping sheep. A bright star decorated the sky to signify the birth of the long-awaited King of the Entire World and lowly shepherds were the first to know by a great company of the heavenly host. There was nothing royal about it - no palaces, celebrations, or decorations, other than the heavenly hosts and signs in the skies.
I wondered this Christmas when this realization came to me if we’ve had it all wrong. I love sparkly boughs and twinkly lights as much as the next person, but I also know that preparing my heart for Jesus doesn’t require pomp and circumstance or for everything to be perfectly in place. It only requires me and my adoration and attention on this event and what it means for me. All the other things had just been getting in the way.
I realize this message won’t resonate with everyone, and it may make some folks upset or feel offended. I promise that is not my intent. This is simply my experience I’m sharing, which could only have happened because of the great loss our family experienced. I’m quite sure if toxic mold hadn’t taken everything away from us, I’d still be decorating our home with ‘all the things’ and putting that stress on myself to make it perfect. But, I’m glad it did because it opened my eyes.
And, I surely appreciate the margin.
Perhaps you go all out decorating your home and it brings great joy and you still manage to keep your heart attuned to Jesus and the advent season. I’m sure that is the case for many. But if it’s not, if reading this has helped you identify that you, too, put a lot of unnecessary stress on yourself to get everything “ready”, or you feel a little tinge of discomfort when thinking about spending money on decorations you know you don’t need, or worse, spending money on decorations you know you don’t have - then maybe you can pray about this feeling and what it means and ask God to show you what he wants you to do about it.
I understand it may also feel strange to make changes in this way. I know for us when we decided to stop decorating for Halloween4 it felt strange and in a neighborhood that goes all out for Halloween, very much against worldly ways. But as image-bearers, we are called to walk differently.
I still decorate. Our tree is beautifully decorated. I stare at it often and it brings me to adoration and worship for King Jesus. Our mantel is tastefully and minimally decorated with a simple garland and some ornaments. We put up a few lights on the outside of our home this Christmas. We couldn’t afford to hire someone, like many of the neighbors did, to string our house up perfectly (I also don’t prefer perfectly straight bulbed lights on homes in that way). There is mistletoe, and a few intentional decorations here and there, but nothing, not a single thing that came out of a giant plastic bin from the attic, gave me anxiety or caused me any distraction from the reason for the season this year. Instead, the lack of ‘all the things’ gave me margin. And that margin allows me to spend time with Jesus.
Getting “ready” for Christmas is never about the decorations. It’s always about our hearts.
O Holy Night
When I think about preparing my heart for Christmas and the celebrating the greatest gift of all time, Jesus, the lyrics to this classic hymn from the 1800’s bring me to a deep, adoring worship filled with awe and thanksgiving. THIS song, THESE lyrics are what Advent and the Christmas season is ALL ABOUT, not lights and decorations. I loved learning more about this sacred song here.
O Holy Night
O holy night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of our dear Saviour’s birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
‘Til He appear’d and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees! O hear the angel voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born;
O night divine, O night, O night Divine.
Led by the light of Faith serenely beaming,
With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand.
So led by light of a star sweetly gleaming,
Here come the wise men from Orient land.
The King of Kings lay thus in lowly manger;
In all our trials born to be our friend.
He knows our need, to our weakness is no stranger,
Behold your King! Before Him lowly bend!
Behold your King, Before Him lowly bend!
Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother;
And in His name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us praise His holy name.
Christ is the Lord! O praise His Name forever,
His power and glory evermore proclaim.
His power and glory evermore proclaim.
The Healing Home Series
A long time ago, I wrote here on Substack that I would begin sharing posts about ‘The Healing Home’. I was, and currently still am, living through a very challenging season and appreciating the sustaining beauty and power of home and wanted to write what I had learned. Most of what I had learned stemmed from the ‘great loss’ mentioned above, and out of necessity and needing to start our lives all over again, I did thing differently. I purchased new decor differently, decorated differently, and also worshipped differently. This was a profound movement for me, someone who used to obsess over home decorating books and magazines, but there was something undeniably special about this change of heart that occurred. It’s very similar in tone to this entire post about ‘taking away the distractions to focus on what truly matters’.
Unfortunately, at the time, things became too overwhelming with taking care of our challenging situation and I had to stop writing about it. This past year, I have been regularly reminded about The Healing Home and decided to start where I could with sharing info. I made a few posts on Instagram and they were delightfully well received.
My hope in the new year, God willing, is to continue to work on this series so that I can share what I’ve learned with others.
Here are the posts I’ve shared on Instagram if you have missed them there:
I am not sure how I plan to use Instagram in the new year but until I make some decisions about its involvement in my life and art, I’d love for you to follow me if you aren’t already. I have two accounts; this one is my main account, and this one is my daily creative practice, what I call my “creative morning pages”. Additionally, I have two more accounts that I no longer use but are chock-full of activities and art. This one is when I taught art and had my art ministry in Atlanta, and this one is when I homeschooled (nature-schooled) my kids and ran a Wild + Free homeschool group in the Atlanta area. Although I don’t post to these latter two, there is still a plethora of great info I’ve shared on these pages that is still great.
Thanks so much for following along. I know there are a ton of voices out there and I am grateful you are here reading mine. And I am grateful for you!
My voice will forever and always sing praises to King Jesus! Hallelujah for the greatest gift ever to be received. I pray you have received it, too, friend.
Love,
Kelly
People thought we were crazy when we told them the reason we had to escape our home was hidden toxic mold. Not many believed mold could do that to people.
Our entire family’s health has been hugely affected by toxic mold and we continue to have challenges with our health because of living in it for so long unknowingly. I’m pretty sure enough time has passed, that that story will come out this year. We’ll see.
The Bible doesn’t mention that animals were present at Jesus’s birth, however, a stable is where animals are kept and it was likely, with the town being full of visitors, their animals were among the visitors and the stables were full, too. Many nativity scenes depict animals being present at Jesus’s birth and since many details about this event were excluded from the Bible, we can use context to place animals there.
This is our own experience. It happened after my own conviction to not decorate for Halloween. You do you.
I loved this Kelly! Such a good reminder as I was just thinking to myself that there's some decor I havent gotten to putting up yet and some baking still to do and meal prep and and and 😅 got to remember the reason for the season. I love that hymn too! One of my favs 💛
Thanks for sharing openly about your struggles. I marvel at your resilient spirit that allows you to appreciate the important refining that has occurred through our struggles. You are my inspiration!