It’s now officially the season of Hallmark Channel originals and food-coma-inducing family dinners. For singles, it’s also a time when singleness can feel especially difficult as we look toward another Christmas without a significant other, while “All I Want for Christmas Is You” serenades us in the grocery store.
Despite what romantic comedies try to tell us, Christmas isn’t about relationship status updates. We may be coming to the end of a year we hoped would bring us into a relationship, but Christmas holds so much more for us to celebrate.
Christmas reminds us that God keeps His promises, and we remember when God became one of us to meet us in our deepest need (which, incidentally, wasn’t liberation from singleness). No matter our status in this life, at Christmas we celebrate that we are the loved and accepted children of God for eternity.
Whether it’s our last Christmas as a single (you never know) or not, it will be our last Christmas this year. Let’s not waste our celebration of Immanuel — “God with us” — by focusing on our own desires or disappointments. Let’s make this a Christmas to remember! (Pardon the Hallmark Christmas Channel reference.)
Christmas Bucket List
Everyone has different traditions that make Christmas feel like Christmas, but as you try to find a balance between nostalgic childhood memories and new favorite activities, here are a few ideas to consider.
- Look up the story behind an old Christmas hymn like “Silent Night” or “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen”
- Host a cookie-making party or cookie exchange
- Hand out some of those cookies to people you meet throughout the week — cashiers, Uber drivers, Salvation Army bell-ringers
- Watch an old Christmas classic
- Schedule an evening close to Christmas as your own stress-free Christmas prep night, either for tasks like wrapping gifts, or relaxation like a movie and hot chocolate. If you want, invite a friend or two to join you.
- Call a friend you don’t get to talk with much
- Go look at Christmas lights
- Find a place you feel is important to you. My uncle is a doctor and every year he dresses up as Santa at a hospital.
- Read through Luke 1-2. We’ve all read it before, but read it again. Choose a verse or two to meditate on for a few days.
- Spend an afternoon with an older widow/widower from your church. Ask them about their Christmas memories.
- Go Christmas shopping with a friend. Last week another single friend and I explored some little shops downtown that we’d never been to before.
- Look up some of the prophecies about Jesus’ birth
- Go caroling, and make sure to stop at an assisted living facility or nursing home
- Ask a married friend and their family if you can join them for a family-friendly movie night. Provide the movie (and maybe some snacks).
Christmas is good news
Over two thousand years ago in a small Jewish town under Roman occupation, a baby was born in a stable. We’ve romanticized that image, but may we never forget how amazing it is that God chose a stinky, unsanitary, totally unimpressive place for Jesus to make His entrance. God had come to live with us. Even in our mess.
Everyone on this earth — man, woman, single, married — desperately needs to be saved not from our singleness, but our sin and the consequences of it. When we come to Jesus, we’re all in the same camp, and the same good news is given for all of us: “‘For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord’” (Luke 2:11).
As we look toward another Christmas, let’s remember that we’re celebrating a love that goes deeper than our relationship status (or lack of one).
Because of Jesus, we have every reason to celebrate.
Copyright 2019 Lauren Dunn. All rights reserved.
