Christmas Archives - Holley Gerth

Christmas Hope

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I pull the nativity set from the box, releasing it from its blanket of bubble wrap. The pieces are ceramic. Pure white. The donkey is missing half an ear. It belonged to my grandmother and every year I think of her when I set it on my shelf.

She had polio at age twenty-eight and spent most of her years in a wheelchair. I loved the patterns her wheels left in the carpet, like a trail to somewhere secret and magical.

A pastor came to visit her in the hospital. He said, “Frances, this can make you bitter or better.” She would always say, with a twinkle in her eyes, “I chose better.” I run my fingers across the baby in the manger as I tell myself this story again. The Jesus in this nativity will always mean hope to me because of it.

It seems every nativity set comes with a story. Maybe it’s an heirloom full of memories, a special purchase on an outing that brings back a cocoa-scented moment, a relic from childhood with beloved dust in the cracks, a gift from a friend that came in a package with a red bow on top.

What I love about all these nativities is that Jesus is unique in each one. In my nativity He is hope and to someone else He might be a reminder of peace and to you He could be comfort and joy. Oh, who He is doesn’t change. But how His love reveals itself in our lives is different in each of our hearts, each of our homes. This is beautiful to me. A kind of Christmas mystery that I will never fully understand on this spinning, broken earth.

When you think of Jesus, what’s a word that comes to mind like “hope” does for me? I’d love for you to share your word by leaving a comment on this post. (Subscribers, to leave a comment please click here to visit the blog post.) This Christmas Jesus is my…(hope, peace, joy, help, Savior, etc.).

I arrange the pieces of the nativity. I step back and smile. Then I set Jesus at the center, exactly where He should be.

Merry Christmas to you and those you love. I’m so grateful for you.

XOXO

Holley Gerth

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Right now, we’re doing a special link-up series to celebrate Fiercehearted: Live Fully, Love Bravely. You’re a fiercehearted woman so I’m asking you to pour out a little love and courage with your words every Wednesday {the link-up goes live at 5:30am CST}. Simply write an encouraging blog post, especially if it’s about living fully and loving bravely, and then share it here. Don’t have a blog? You can still write an encouraging comment. If you’re reading this by email, go to holleygerth.com to see all the fun and join in too.

When you link up your post, take a moment to leave an encouraging comment on the one that’s linked up just before yours. Thanks, friends!

I’m having Coffee For Your Heart with my friend Holley Gerth!

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What Gift Can You Give Yourself this Christmas?

by Holley 31 Comments

{my graphics are free goodies for you}

Gift-giving is not my strong suit. I stand in the aisles of stores slack-jawed with my eyes glazed over. I don’t know how to choose between the Cranberry Cinnamon Scone candle or the Christmas Cookie one. I just get hungry and go home empty-handed. Or if I dare to pick one it turns out to actually smell like the poor old pumpkin that has been on the porch since Halloween.

I’m not only like this with gifts for other people; I’m the same way with myself. I need quiet and instead I say “yes” to one more event on the calendar. I desperately want peace and instead make a to-do list so long it rivals Santa’s. I long for joy and yet I tell myself the holidays need to be perfect until I’m gritting my teeth and stress-eating candy canes leftover from last year. Ever been there?

So I, quite audaciously, decided to pause and intentionally ask this question: “What gift am I going to give myself this Christmas?”

I already have pink fuzzy socks and flannel pajama pants with hearts on them so I settled on this: Permission to rest.

What does rest look like to me? It’s the little things: a nap, a cup of tea, a few moments sitting with my husband on the couch, a cozy blanket, a “no” instead of “yes” sometimes, leftovers for dinner. And, perhaps most of all, giving the critical voice inside my head the holiday season off. I’m sending her somewhere sunny like Florida or the Caribbean or Australia. Anywhere that’s far enough away that I can’t hear her. A one-way ticket, I hope.

I used to think “rest” was selfish, but then two things happened:

I read a whole lot of research that showed happier people are more giving, kind and generous.

And a friend said something to me that I’ll never forget: “Sometimes rest is an act of worship.”

Both of these makes good sense to me. So I’m picking “permission to rest” as a gift to myself because I know if I do then this gift will ultimately be passed on to the people I love and the Savior I serve and this weary world.

I may never be the best gift-giver, but I’m slowly learning. Maybe next year I’ll even be brave enough to venture back into the candle aisle.

What gift would you like to give yourself this Christmas? I’d love for you to share your answer by leaving a comment on this post. (Subscribers, to leave a comment please click here to visit the blog post.)

XOXO

Holley

P.S. If you, like me, are challenged at picking gifts, then this might be helpful. If you order five copies of Fiercehearted from my bookstore, you’ll save $10 and also receive this Be Strong and Courageous necklace (while supplies last). You can find all the information right here.

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When you link up your post, take a moment to leave an encouraging comment on the one that’s linked up just before yours. Thanks, friends!

I’m having Coffee For Your Heart with my friend Holley Gerth!

{click to tweet that you’re joining me here today}

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What’s Your One Word for Christmas?

by Holley 59 Comments

{my graphics are free goodies for you}

Here is a true and honest confession: Christmas and all its beautiful hoopla can sometimes drive me about half-crazy. This is not the fault of Christmas, of course. It’s purely my own neurotic self.

Shortly after Thanksgiving I start believing that since it’s the most wonderful time of the year then I must build gingerbread skyscrapers and create intricate snowflake designs in the carpet with the vacuum and give puppies wearing red bows to strangers standing in line with me at Starbucks.

I need an intervention. A focus. A way to remember this season is really all about Jesus and not about sewing an elf costume by hand with one eye closed while sipping homemade eggnog and singing Christmas carols with the neighbors.

(In case you’re thinking I ever actually do any of these things, I don’t. I just imagine doing them. And this is enough to bring on the crazy.)

So this Christmas I’ve decided to pick one word that will be my mantra and the rope that pulls me back from the brink of merry madness. My word this year is going to be…simplicity.

Simplicity means it’s okay to get the premade cookie dough at the store.

It means I have permission to nap instead of do vacuum art.

It means I treat my holiday sanity like a package under the tree marked “fragile.”

It means I love imperfectly in the ways I can and let go of the rest.

It means, most of all, that I remember Christmas isn’t about me. It’s simply about a baby named Jesus.

Would you like to join me in choosing one word for your Christmas? If so, I’d love for you to leave a comment sharing it. (Subscribers, to leave a comment please click here to visit the blog post.)

Whew, I feel better already.

XOXO

Holley

P.S. Are you looking for Christmas gifts? Then I’d love for you to stop by my bookshop. If you order five copies of Fiercehearted from my bookstore, you’ll save $10 and also receive this Be Strong and Courageous necklace too (while supplies last). You can find all the information right here.

*****

When you link up your post, take a moment to leave an encouraging comment on the one that’s linked up just before yours. Thanks, friends!

I’m having Coffee For Your Heart with my friend Holley Gerth!

{click to tweet that you’re joining me here today}

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Peace on Earth, Goodwill to All of Us

by Holley 17 Comments

{my graphics are free goodies for you}

We’ve read the story and know the scene. The unshowered shepherds with the wide-eyed flock around them. The shock then awe. The angels indescribable, declaring the good news. The star and the manger. The Baby and the hope.

Yes, I’ve read the story and yet this time one phrase keeps echoing in my heart: “Peace, goodwill toward men.” It seems peace and goodwill have sometimes been missing this year. They’ve gotten lost somewhere in the angry Facebook posts. The sides taken and lines drawn. The fists raised and the shouts heard.

When I see these words “peace, goodwill toward men” I feel a little homesick. The way we do when we have to spend Christmas far away in a place we weren’t ever intended to, where we really don’t belong. Because we are made for love. For grace. For understanding. For togetherness. For joy.

There’s a lot God could have chosen to say that night. He could have dealt with politics (which had their troubles then too). He could have made moral proclamations. He could have taken a tone like a ruler-tapping teacher and told us all to get our act together. But instead He blessed us. He spoke words of encouragement and hope.

What if the whole world did the same this Christmas? What if in this season we all put down our opinions and picked up grace? Shut our mouths and opened our doors. Pulled back our judgments and reached out our hands. Banished our angry words and brought out the welcome mat for kindness and mercy.

It’s scary, I know. Because it might seem as if everything will go wrong if we dare.

But if that’s what God chose to do, can’t we?

Sometimes we forget that Someone already came to save the world. That job has been taken. That task marked complete. It is not on our shoulders. And this is what Jesus told us will continue that mission: “A new commandment I give to you, love one another” (John 13:34).

Peace on earth, goodwill toward men.

It’s the good news of the first Christmas. It’s what we need so much more than one more angry Facebook post. More than another television tirade. More than fists and voices raised. And this good news hasn’t changed. So, Dear World, could it be time that we do?

Let’s make this Christmas all about love. Which is really just another way of saying let’s make it all about Jesus.

XOXO

Holley Gerth

– If it feels like “Peace on Earth” is for everyone but you, then here’s a free #MoreThanSmallTalk video about Hope When the Holidays are Hard. You may also want to check out the rest of the End the Year with Less Fear series.

– If you’d like a little extra encouragement {and a free ebook!}, you can subscribe to receive blog posts via email.

– If you’re looking for a study to do in 2017 you’ll be encouraged by The You’re Already Amazing LifeGrowth Guide.

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Welcome to the Coffee for Your Heart weekly link-up! You’re an encourager so I’m asking you to pour out a little love with your words every Wednesday {link-up goes live at 5:30am CST}. Simply write an encouraging blog post and then share it here. Don’t have a blog? You can still write an encouraging comment. If you’re reading this by email, go to holleygerth.com to see all the fun and join in too.

Pretty please use this button in your blog post so others can easily join in with us {html code in right sidebar}. And when you link up your post, take a moment to leave an encouraging comment on the one that’s linked up just before yours. Thanks, friends!

I’m having Coffee For Your Heart with my friend Holley Gerth

{click to tweet that you’re joining me here today}

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Good News for All of Us this Christmas Season

by Holley

We wore bathrobes stitched by my mother’s own hand, terry cloth rough against our skin in navy blue and dark green. A white belt around the middle. We put towels on our heads, makeshift coverings with frayed edges. Then my brother and I marched both solemn and delighted into the living room. He Joseph and I Mary.

We’d take our places in front of a manger, usually a toy crib where one of my baby dolls played the starring role. No matter that this doll was a girl with long eyelashes and a bald plastic head. She would do. Our dog, an old but enthusiastic dachshund who looked a bit like a happy sausage, would play the role of livestock.

My Dad would clear his throat and begin to read from Luke. “And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them….” (2:8).

Every Christmas Eve we did this by candlelight until the teenage years came and we rolled our eyes and wanted only to eat seconds of dessert. In my grown-up years I have never done anything like it either.

But I think now, in the middle of the hustle and the busyness, the to-do lists and the calendar with its full boxes, that we got it right back then. That we knew so much more than I do now. Because what I remember from those times, more than anything else, is the feeling of being loved. The wonder of realizing Jesus came for me.

For me in the tattered robe with the towel slipping off her head. For me who sometimes threw things at her brother and pulled the poor dog’s ears and ate up the last piece of chocolate fudge. He came for me anyway. And all He wanted in return was for me to love Him back.

{Continue reading this post over at (in)courage…}

p.s. If you’re looking for encouraging Christmas gifts then check out my collection on DaySpring.com! I even have a special coupon code just for you: get 25% off with code HOLLEY25 now through December 16th.

p.p.s. If you’d like a little extra encouragement {and a free ebook!}, you can subscribe to receive blog posts via email.