The Hard Work of Christmas: A Guest Post by Nancy Franson
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Each year I make traditional Swedish Pepparkakor for Christmas, and each year doing so is one of my least favorite tasks. Working from a family recipe handwritten by my sister-in-law, I roll and cut out nearly a hundred thin ginger cookies; a job which keeps me on my feet for several hours. I wish I could cut the recipe in half and make fewer cookies, but it calls for only a single egg and I have yet to figure out how to cut a raw egg in half. Although I enjoy them, Pepparkakor are hardly my favorite cookie. The dough is dry, crumbly, and hard to work with. The older I get, and the more excess weight I carry on my hips, the more my joints object to the hours I spend standing at the counter rolling out crumbly dough.
So why do it? Although I love preparing for Christmas, I can allow the work to become exhausting. If I dare to tell myself the truth, I know that behind all the effort, energy, and expense I invest in my Christmas celebrations, I’m really just trying to create an experience and make happy memories. Somehow I must think I can recapture those “happy golden days of yore.” I imagine my efforts might be able to create an atmosphere of “peace on earth and goodwill toward men” among those in my home and gathered around my table.
The problem is, I’m not sure there ever were happy golden days of yore. As I think back to Christmases past, I remember the year my baby daughter was inconsolable because she was cutting teeth. Another year we had to evacuate our home, leaving behind newly unwrapped gifts, because our furnace was belching black smoke. And one Christmas, just as my family gathered around the table for dinner, we received word of the death of my husband’s grandmother.
No matter how much work I put into the celebration of Christmas, I am incapable of creating a merry one.
And although the song tells us, “There’s no place like home for the holidays,” home can also be a place where unresolved conflicts and lingering tensions reside. This year as I wait for my adult children to come home for Christmas, I am keenly aware that our family dynamics mirror those which are a staple of holiday-themed sitcoms and movies. I fear I could easily slip into old patterns of nagging, criticizing, and preaching; treating my adult children as if they were still children. Patterns of behavior and family dynamics change slowly, if at all, apart from the work of transforming grace.
For me, the tasks of of trimming the tree, shopping for gifts and, yes, even baking the Christmas Pepparkakor aren’t the difficult work of celebrating the holiday. The hard labor of Christmas comes in daring to believe the truth of the story, that the incarnation of God makes things like love, forgiveness, healing, and reconciliation possible and real. The hard work of Christmas asks me to live in the reality that Christ came as a baby, offering the gift of transforming grace.
Actually, this hard work of Christmas isn’t really hard at all. It’s impossible. “Apart from me,” said Christ, “you can do nothing.” So when I attempt this hard work of incarnating the incarnation, of living the love of Christ and loving those around me well, and as I fail as I am so prone to do; Christ calls me to receive his gift anew. He reminds me that I am able to love only because He came, demonstrating that He loved me first. He invites me to believe that His forgiveness and transforming grace are real and available to my family and to me. He dares me to believe I don’t live in a holiday movie or sitcom. I live with imperfect people in a fallen world plagued by heartache and sin; a world into which a baby was born in order to make all things new.
Each year I bake traditional Swedish Pepparkakor for Christmas, but not out of duty or obligation. I bake them because my mother enjoys them, and I love my mother. It’s a small gesture, a simple gift offered in love. But the labor of rolling out crumbling cookie dough becomes, for me, an affirmation of faith. Through a simple gift of ginger cookies I am privileged, in a small way, to incarnate the love of Christ; affirming that I believe the story is true.
Nancy, thank you for gracing us with this reflection today -- I am so very grateful for your friendship!
Please visit Nancy at her blog, Out of My Alleged Mind, and follow her on Twitter. You will certainly be glad you did!!
{that's Nancy, on the right, with Deidra and me at the Relevant 2011 conference! She was just as wonderfully zany in person as she is online!}










Oh, that love He gives to us. Thanks for this today. I needed it.
I am awed by your bravery....to analyze why you do the things you do for Christmas (apart from visiting Santa with Ethel). I've pared back my preparations, but I haven't dared to think about what I'm trimming away with the foregone traditions.
Nancy, I'm so delighted to have you here! Love you, cookie-making queen!
Thanks for hosting me here. Maybe I should have sent you cookies? Love the picture with the fabulous Deidra! Love you back.
Oh, Sheila. Don't kid yourself! I'm not really that brave, and I don't think too hard about these things. But. I really don't like making those cookies, but I will continue to make them for mom for as many years as the Lord allows her here. I know each year is a gift.
I so desperately need that love. I'm hopeless at loving others without it. Thanks for stopping by, Renee!
Yes, each year is a gift.
So is each
Pepparkakor
"The
hard labor of Christmas comes in daring to believe the truth of the
story, that the incarnation of God makes things like love, forgiveness,
healing, and reconciliation possible and real"
Oh, Amen to that, sweet girl. And now I'm re-evaluating my tendency "of nagging, criticizing, and preaching". Oh, ugh. Why do you have to call a spade a spade so well? You are right. It takes a whole lot of Jesus. And maybe some bluets on the table.
"No matter how much work I put into the celebration of Christmas, I am incapable of creating a merry one."--oh, yes.
Dread-fully yours,
Megan
Nancy, you have reminded me that things are much better done out of Love.
thanks for the wonderful reminder.
it a good gift.
n.
Good thing it's not up to us to make it merry!
I just call 'em as I seem 'em, and I see way too many of those tendencies in my own life. A whole lot of Jesus--yes ma'am!
Beautifully written truths! Thanks for sharing!
we make these too... hard work but done together... so much easier :) I know you will enjoy yours as we do ours!
The baking part is my most challenging part of a Merry Christmas. But, they love the cookies. Merry Christmas to you. :)
Nancy and Michelle,
What a great team! So fun that you two got to hang out in real life.Nancy, "daring to believe the truth in the story". Yes that beautiful gift of grace.Michelle,Get ready for a deep and profound statement...you have bangs? Who knew? Like the hair.Love to both of you.
Now we just need to get you in a picture with us! Love back atcha.
Merry Christmas to you, Happy Girl! Thanks for stopping by.
Thanks for stopping by. Nice to meet you!
My mom said she got her package today, so that made me smile. Enjoy!
I am totally laughing! I DO have bangs -- time to update the gravatar, eh? I need to get a professional headshot taken, that's what I really need...but I am kind of cheaping out over that!
Still waiting to meet you in person, girl...
That makes me smile, Nancy.
Oh, Nancy. You know I know exactly what you're saying when you write about the family all being home and how hard it is to work at letting them just be. It is exactly like cutting out those crumbly, dry cookies. Hundreds of them. For hours.
But the part of this post that just undid me? This: "I bake them because my mother enjoys them, and I love my mother."
You are spectacular!
That part undid me, too. I rejoice that my mother is resting in the arms of our Lord, but oh....how I miss her at Christmas!
Yes. I know you know. So thankful for your encouragement along the way. More than I can say. And you are fabulous!
Such truth here, about how the hard work of Christmas isn't all the stuff, it's doing relationships the way Jesus does. It's where our faith becomes tested. I do a lot of talking to God . . .and myself during the holidays. Enjoyed your post and love the photo Michelle. Hope to meet you both at Relevant next year!
Each year, each day is a gift.
Wonderfully zany in person. Yes. And wonderful.
I'd love a Pepparkakor, please. And a mug of hot cider. I wonder--could you use Eggbeaters and then just half an egg that way?
I love how you love your mom.
I agree - no matter how much I want to make Christmas a joyful, Christ-centered memory - I am incapable of really doing that. It's up to those that come through the door to find happiness in it. I've never had a Pepparkakor - but I'll swapyou some chocolate truffles or majeskas:). Looking back - Christmas wasn't always perfect - but I think it was the richness I found in my own poverty - the sharing and being with family, the feasting in the midst of famine, the traditions that said life can be sweeter than it is - and that Hope was born 2,000 years ago!
Let me know about that cookie swap! :) LOL
Most time we do this to ourselves, burdening ourselves with unnecessary burdens. Especially when it comes to holiday rituals. Sometimes all it takes is a basket of fruit or something simple that reflects the spirit of giving and sharing during Christmas seasons. It doesn't have to be anything trying and tiring. I found this out after many years of holiday baking...
Love how you went from Pepparkakor to how we all really do need Jesus... I know I desperately need His grace to love like Him...thanks for sharing and thanks to Michelle for hosting :)
basically I just spent the entire day baking and this was just what I needed to read.
Also, I think you cut a raw egg with a knife. Maybe.
I love you Nancy, and your Pepparkakro, or peppakakor, or whatever. And I love your Jesus. Merry Christmas!
It's so true, we can't make Christmas merry by the trappings themselves, but when we do the things we do "because we love" then we join Jesus in the heart of His incarnation, His pouring Himself out for all of us.
Merry Christmas Nancy!!
Thanks for having her over Michelle!! The two of you are a great team!!
Merry Christmas to you too!!
Oh, lovely Nancy! How nice to find you here today - or is it tomorrow? Yikes, Christmas must be near, I find myself a bit lost in the calendar. I pray your Christmas will indeed be merry - because of grace.