You never bring me flowers. You never sing me love songs.

So this is Christmas? My sister-in-law, T, and I are at the counter of a deli in a tiny town in New Hampshire ordering lunch. This wizened man with more hair over his eyes than on his scalp leans over the counter full of refridgerated meat and in finely crafted New England drawl asks us, "Merry Chreesmis.... Ahn't you glahd the damn thing is ovah?" To which we had to answer a very un-Christmasy "yes." As T is an agnostic socialist and I am a son-in-law, Christmas dredges up such conflicting, bittersweet emotions. The family comes together for their once-a-year reunion from disparate edges of the USA, carting in accents and issues and contexts and opinions just waiting to collide. In three days, we go from high points of filial love and conviviality to depths of nagging and finger-pointing. Gift giving begins as a ritual of inter-personal knowing and supplying--presents are needed and appreciated--eventually languishing in guilt-stuffed eddies of "I searched for this for you for months, but if you don't like it, I can take it back...." Sure, it's something that you'd never use, can't stand, and would rather flush down the commode than try to find a place to store, but you artificially light up your face and muster a "No, it's wonderful!!! Thank you!!!" In reality, I only grunt. But it's a superficially thankful grunt. There are great points too. There are conversations you never could have had otherwise, great food, space to read for a while, lots of snow, traditions and stories of Christmases long gone, my wife being content with our lives here and now. At the end, of course, there are lots of hugs and kind, heartfelt words about how it was good to see everyone and how this year was better than last and have a safe trip and we'll talk again soon. With each person gone, there's that faint scent of bittersweetness again...more room, fewer people, fewer laughs but less tension. A greater sense of normalcy and control. A weaker sense of holiday. Inevitably the car turns from the dirt roads to pavement and then to highway. The talk turns from do you remember this and did you know that and what were you thinking when this happened to the same stinging questions. "Is this how it will always be?" "What can we do different?" "Should we try to say anything?" And the most painful one: "Is this it?" Will the years whip by one after another without significant, vibrant conversation, without true understanding or friendship? When the insane and crafty and unintentional, unspoken barriers between family members finally crumble, will it be too late? Will it be on a death-bed or, worse, afterwards? Of course once we've thought and talked and mourned dysfunctionality in our blood-familes, we turn to our faith-families. Surely there we can find the true brothers and sisters our Lord spoke of. Surely there the paper and tape relationships we construct and observe in our earth-focused families can be shredded and burnt by the iron-sharpening-iron phileo of Believer-ly brother- and sister-hood. But sometimes, maybe most-times, there we run around like the wooden toy-people in Max Lucado's You Are Special--running from wooden person to wooden person trying to get shiny stickers and not ugly dots, soothing words instead of stinging ones (or apathy, which hurts far more perhaps). Too rarely, we go to the Toy Maker. Too rarely we ask him to scour the stickers off of us, without regard to which ones are privilaged--even good stickers from big wooden people. Far, far too often I find myself craving some mention by someone; some acknowledgement that I am valuable to them, that I make a difference in their cosmos. Somehow even Christians run around looking for scraps of praise from others. And in our blitzkrieg of encouragement-seeking, we close our eyes to the real needs of those around us. We want our own Christmas--a day spent in our own praise. And we--I--never take our eyes off ourselves enough to join our Toy Maker in making his kingdom come, his will be done on earth as it already and always is in heaven. And so another year stumbles by. In our best moments, hopefully we open our eyes and cry out "Is this it?!?!" But I fear that all too often, Christian or not, we just look for our next fix. I've seen the needle and the damage done. A little part of it in everyone. But every junkie's like a setting sun.