Yesterday Megan called. The oven was broken. There was a pop, then she looked inside… white fire flames were rising from the bottom.

Frankly I was impressed. Baking over an electric fire will surely be a new food trend. But in reality this will put a crimp on Christmas snacking. While our January bodies will praise us, yesterday Megan was sad…

Thankfully the fire went out when Meg turned the oven off. Still she was left asking me, what were we going to do for Darcy’s birthday cupcakes?  (From the background, “We can just have ice cream!”). What about about Christmas cookies? (“Don’t worry mom, we can eat the dough!”). How are we going to afford a new oven? (“Can’t we just use the microwave?”) **

Christmas is alway a chaotic season. From finding gifts, to Christmas cards,  to decorating, (Plus keeping the baby from eating the decorations – I worry Ezekiel will be like the cat on Christmas Vacation. Which is the real reason we need the distraction of  Christmas cookies: Eat these, not the cords!), to visiting family, to snacking, to parties, to secret Santa, to … Adding to the normal holiday fun, inevitably something will break or sickness will arrive or unexpected guests or probably all of it!

And everything costs money. I will be honest (like Clark) my Christmas bonus is already spent. So lets hope the church does not enroll us in Bible of the Month club!

I exaggerate.** To be serious, we budget and set money aside all year long for this month. Mainly so our Christmas does not come from AmEx. But at some point every season I have to remind myself to stop hurrying. To turn off all the things happening around us. To let go of stress. When I stop worrying about gifts and parties the world does not burst into flames. For that matter, everyone else is so busy, I doubt they notice. Then in the quiet I can remember why we celebrate…

^{Luke 2:15-16} When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger.

… I guess there is need to hurry to find one thing. To miss him is the true cost of our busyness. A cost too great not to stop.

** This is not a blog or beg for anyone to send money. I have ordered a new heating element, thankfully a cheap part, and our oven should be baking by the weekend!