New column: How to avoid half-lit, tangled up holidays

After four hours and twenty-five knot disentanglements, I stood like Clark Griswold on my front porch, took a deep breath, and plugged the string of light strands into the extension cord.

The resulting pop and metallic smell knocked me backwards.

Though thankful all three dogs emerged from the house unsinged, the darkness of Daylight Savings Time engulfed my enthusiasm, and my patience felt fried.

Where did I go wrong?

Looking back, I suppose I knew deep down I tempted fate connecting half-lit strands to half-lit strands. At the time, I figured I could throw the non-working portions behind a bush and no one would ever know. Besides, we had plenty of lights from last year, and I didn’t feel like heading to the consumer-congested malls on Black Friday. So on and on I went, connecting strands and covering every bush and pillar with lights. (Later, my husband told me you’re only supposed to link—at most—three strands together.)

Nowadays, many outdoor lights are wired and circuited to avoid burnouts and blown fuses—if the user puts them up according to package directions. But who needs directions during the holidays? Tis the season to throw caution to the wind and cast my Scrooge-y self to the wayside.

For too long, my sons have lamented about our lack of moving, LED deer.

For too long, they’ve pressed their sweet cheeks to our cold car windows, coveting neighbors’ collections of inflatable candy cane carousels, bears and snowmen as we drive by. I decided this was the year to make it all up to them by going all-out with the lights.

Kapow.

And so goes it during the holidays. Best intentions backfire, and the season ends up hurting more than most folks let on. Knotted up and packed away in boxes all year long, family dysfunction emerges with half-lit feelings and busted fuses. The more such strands are re-used, the more explosive—or plain inoperative—they become. You can link broken strands, but you can’t hide them behind a bush. Sooner or later the whole display blows.

So what’s a Clark-Griswold-wanna-be to do?

I culled three suggestions from Cousin Eddie’s best therapists and talk show hosts.

First, buy a new strand of lights. Start new traditions. Replace battered bulbs. Change colors, sizes and styles. Maybe even try the flashing snowflake variety.

Second, stick with the three-strand limit. Don’t spread yourself—your emotions or your pocketbook—too thin. If that means staying in rather than traveling over the river to Uncle Louis and senile aunt Bethany’s, by all means stay in. Take care of yourself, because, after all, no one else will.

Finally, don’t compete with the neighbors. Someone else will always have more inflatable reindeer around the corner. Instead, focus on the blessings and people under your own roof. Those are the only ones we can really protect and impact anyway.

Then when at last it’s time to plug everything in, you can take a deep breath and relax, knowing you and your pets will still have all their fur come New Year’s Day.

Have a blessed, gracious holiday season!

Come, let’s shout praises to God, raise the roof for the Rock who saved us!
Let’s march into his presence singing praises,
lifting the rafters with our hymns! 

 So come, let us worship: bow before him,
on your knees before God, who made us!
Oh yes, he’s our God,
and we’re the people he pastures, the flock he feeds.

~Psalm 95 TMV

Taking some time away from blogging and social media for the holiday season. (I’ll continue to post my weekly columns here as they release.)

May your days be filled with blessings, peace, comfort and joy, and may you find Him in all you see and do.

When healing hurts: pre-holiday thoughts for the broken

The holidays are coming. (Hey, if it’s not too early for Target to play it up, it’s not too early for me, either.)

Can you feel the excitement? The joy? The wonder?

Or, like many folks, do you feel trepidation? Anxiety? Even fear?

If someone took a picture of you and your extended family, would it look like a Normal Rockwell painting? Or would it look more like this:

Oh, yeah.

All smiles, but weapons loaded and ready.

A couple of years ago I wrote a series on Surviving the Holidays. I think some of the reasons Americans drown themselves in consumerism this time of year is not for the sake of giving. More likely, our overindulgence is an attempt to wrap up our pain, hide it away, and tie it up with a silver bow.

I sat with some friends the other day, many of us in tears, about our struggles to love people as Jesus commands, especially when some people are so hard to love. Indeed, we are called to love our enemies. But what does this look like? Are we, as Christians, utter failures if we cannot bring ourselves to literally wrap our arms around those who hurt us most?

Ultimately, we left the conversation that day, none of us feeling like our painful relational situations had been resolved. But we did agree on two things: 1) loving people the way Christ calls us to is a process which won’t be perfected until we reach Heaven; and 2) in a world as broken as ours, sometimes it is best–for the difficult person and for ourselves–to establish strong boundaries and protect our hearts and the hearts of the ones God has entrusted to us.

I don’t know about you, but I start early working to protect my heart and my household against the pain and duress which, in the past, has nearly ruined holidays. We’ve spent years establishing our own healthy traditions. Slowly but surely, we’re seeing generational cycles of emotional and physical abuse breaking.

And praise God, our children–the ones God placed under our roof–have a chance to live abuse-free lives. They are the first in a line of I don’t know how many generations on both sides of our families who will launch into the world without the baggage and wounds of abuse.

This big old ball of dirt is a hard enough place to walk around without having that.

Problem is, and as my counselor warned me, breaking generational cycles comes with a price. The price of being misunderstood. The price of being criticized, ridiculed, ostracized, even hated for establishing boundaries.

Justin Bieber was on the Today show this morning, where he made this profound statement:

“I’m going to be a target, but I’m not going to be a victim.”

If you’re entering into yet another holiday season feeling like a victim; if you’re dreading once again dutifully taking the pain from relatives, mother-in-laws, steps and ex’s; if you’re knees start knocking at the thought of that awkward family photograph or dinner, I challenge you to consider this:

You.

Do not.

Have to live.

That way.

You have a choice. You can choose healing. You can choose to break cycles of abuse. You can choose to no longer carry the baggage and start new today. 

Two exceptional books about this topic are Bold Love, by Dan Allendar, and Boundaries, by Cloud & Townsend. 

Breaking generational cycles is hard, but so worth it. As Allendar writes, “An evil person, regularly and masterfully, portrays his motives and behavior as innocent. Others just do not understand. He is deceitfully gifted in making the victim of his abuse feel like the perpetrator of the harm. . . Evil misuses power and then claims innocence. If that is questioned, then evil uses shame or mockery to bludgeon the victim into accepting the shame.”

So no wonder it feels so yucky when you begin the journey.

But don’t accept the shame.

Step away from the bludgeoning.

Know you are SO not the perpetrator.

Immerse yourself this season not in decorations, schedules and shopping.

Instead, surround your soul with the hope of healing.

And accept the only true gift that will make you whole.

“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” ~John 8:32

What about you? How have you broken cycles? How do you–or don’t you–deal with the holidays and why?