Home this Christmas
This is the title of a song in Justin Bieber’s 2011 Christmas Album. Low-key really loved that song when it first came out. But anyways, the chorus read:
I’ll be waiting under the mistletoe
While you’re driving here through the winter snow
Baby think of me if it helps to get you home
When the only gift that I really need
Is to have your arms wrapped around me
Baby think of me if it helps to get you home
Home this Christmas
So the couple in this song really wanted to spend time together for Christmas. Their definition of being “home for Christmas” is to be together, cuddling and what not, and sitting by the fireside drinking hot chocolate and marshmallows (okay maybe they didn’t say that exactly but I would imagine).
But why is it that Christmas is so full of these jargons — gifts, Santa Claus, mistletoe, candy canes, snow — that it just becomes so overrated?
It’s like, if you sprinkle these words on a song, they suddenly become Christmas-y?
In reality, my Christmases never involved mistletoes, tales about Santa Claus, or snow.
I know what you’re thinking — I live in a different culture. Yes, that’s exactly right. In case it hasn’t been obvious, I grew up in a Chinese-Indonesian culture. So my Christmases were never really “white” or “mistletoe-y.”
But let me tell you what a typical Christmas was like for my family, at least when I was growing up.
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Starting from an early age, my parents would involve me in any ministry they do at church. My mom was this super talented play writer who is in charge of Christmas plays every single year. My dad was a cool tech-savvy person who is often in charge of … well a lot of things — sound, stage design, multimedia, video editing, you name it.
Whenever they feel the need to add a little girl to make the Christmas service cuter, I would be just what they needed.
And as a little girl, I loved performing too. My first time acting and singing at a Christmas service was at the age of 5 (at least that’s my earliest memory of it).
And so, my Christmas would start early October. That’s when my mom would start bringing me to church to practice reading the play she wrote. A couple weeks later, she’d take me to a recording studio to record my dialogue and/or solo singing part. And during those recording weeks I would have to wait inside the recording studio, playing “bounce” on my Dad’s phone while waiting for my parents to call it a day for the other actors.
Occasionally the college kids would take me out for some unhealthy street food or nasi goreng tek-tek because they think I was cute. Older kids loved me AND were willing to buy me food. I was living the dream.
The next couple of weeks would the most dreadful phase. Here’s when my mom would go full-on acting coach mode with me (by the way, she is such a good actress!). But I was a little kid, so I was no better than the kids at those iklan Biskuat auditions. I still remember the days my mom would ask me to repeat a dialogue like a hundred billion times until I get the facial expressions right.
Once I passed this stage, comes the serious rehearsals now. But this is the fun part. This is when everything gets real. Now I get to practice with costumes. I get to practice with the stage all set and everything. How I loved performing. I still remember the day I showed my friends and teacher the poster of the play I was in (which had my face on it!).
Christmas services at our church is on the 23rd, 24th, and 25th. So that’s when I would be spending 90% of my day in church (other than sleep).
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So if you ask me what a Christmas at home is like for me? I’d say it has a lot to do with being in church. In fact, I did not even imagined a Christmas where I don’t spend too much time in church.
And then my life starts to build around that. I became a better singer because of Christmas services. I became closer to my church friends through Christmas services. I even met my boyfriend because we were both main characters at a Christmas play!
Christmas ministries became so engrained in me that I refused to see myself not in that position, very much so that when my Dad wanted for us to travel to the UK in the Christmas of 2014, I pleaded that we don’t leave until after Christmas. I had the fear of missing out. I did not want my friends to be on the ministry team without me.
But it wasn’t because I was truly happy serving the Lord on Christmas. I was feeding my ego.
I guess my Christmas jargons became “church,” and “rehearsals,” which I started to see as overrated. I truly realized then that I did those things just because I had to. Because it felt like without that part of myself, I wouldn’t be me. Because I was Kianto and Kelita’s daughter, who everyone expects to see every Christmas. And because being on stage felt like home.
But was it really home?
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Fast forward to the Christmas of 2016. That year, was the first year I actually felt being home for Christmas.
Early December, we went to trail of lights and had doughnuts afterwards. The next day, I was on a plane to go to Jakarta. The next couple of days were crazy. I was doing an internship for a couple days, got sick and had to stay home for a couple more days. And when I got back to work, I started hating the job.
I disliked the work that I had to do. I did not feel like the internship was worth my time and energy. But I had my parents to talk to about it. I could cry to my mom and dad whenever I came home after work and just wanted to give up. I could share stories with them the way I never could when I was mad at my mom for making me repeat the same line over and over again, or when I was so busy with meetings at church.
Despite having to deal with a bad internship and taking an online class, it was the most peaceful Christmas I’ve ever had …
Because I was vulnerable, and I admitted it. I wasn’t trying to prove to anyone that I was a good performer. I knew I hated my job and I admitted it, to the people who know me the most.
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Who would’ve thought vulnerability would make a good Christmas? Three years ago, I certainly wouldn’t. But going off of my previous post, the best things in life are the unexpected ones.
But if you actually look at it, vulnerability is at the core of what Christmas means. It’s Jesus being “vulnerable,” and coming down to earth and being “down-to-earth.” He was born in a manger, for crying out loud!
So I’m going to be home in less than two weeks. I’m excited for Christmas, but not because of snow or mistletoes or gifts under the tree. I got none of those in Jakarta. But because I am going to be with people who see me through, people who will understand me when I make mistakes, people who don’t judge me when I cry.
I haven’t seen them for awhile but I know the love we have will never fade, because blood surely is thicker than water.
And I won’t be able to sing on stage this Christmas, but that’s okay. I’ll be singing Christmas hymns next to my mother’s beautiful voice, my father’s nice attempt at harmonizing, and maybe I’ll get to hear my brother sing loud enough this year.
That’s all I need to make it home this Christmas.
