Invasion of the Christmas Elephant

There is a giant blow-up elephant sitting on my front porch.

He sits, smiling, glowing softly with a red stocking cap on his head, his ears flapping happily in the winter wind.

He sits, tied tightly to the bench in front of our picture window, and greets the neighborhood with his Christmas grin.

In the corner of our living room, just beside the picture window and the Christmas elephant, is our Christmas tree.

A real blue spruce with the smell of pine needles, it sits. Full of wild colored lights and red candy cane garland, magically and sublime, it sits.

Strung with a set of Bob the Builder lights, and another set of Jungle Animal lights, it sits. Full of Mickey Mouse and African elephant ornaments, it sits.

The window in front of the elephant is covered in Christmas-themed window clings. Shepherds and a manger, snowmen and snowflakes, Christmas trees and trains, all stuck haphazardly on the windows. Four Christmas socks hang from the wall, different sizes, slightly crooked.

But truthfully friends, it all comes back to the elephant on the front porch. He sits, and every time I pull in the driveway or look out the window he is there, ears flapping, giving me that big smile.

My three year old fell in love with this Christmas elephant last year, and when I did not buy it for him, he continued to ask about it. All. Year. Long. Until finally his grandma found one on sale this year. And now he sits on our porch.

He sits there, and in some strange way, in the quiet of my exhausted heart, in that sweet moment at the end of the day when it is FINALLY quiet in this house and I can hold a thought in my head, he represents everything that is both wonderfully happy and magically insane in my life as a mother of two boys.

Our Christmas Elephant

This elephant sits on the front porch, and represents all the joy of toddlers who love silly things and make me re-live the childhood wonder of this season. In his smile is the sweetness of little boys who smell like syrup and laughter, and who give sloppy kisses and demand mommy snuggles before bed. In his soft glow is the touch of their child skin, the soft padding of their little feet going through the house, and the magic of making memories.

He sits there, and his constant presence also represents the way my life is no longer my own, because I have been invaded by little people who have entirely taken over my heart and home.

He sits, and in his crooked flapping ears I see the way that everything is crooked, from our broken blinds to the cracked Santa lamp and the way the Christmas lights are drooping off the tree because the boys try to play with them.

He sits, and in him I see all that is insane about being a mother, and the general way that being the mother of two toddlers makes you lose all dignity in every way.

When I look at him, I see the way they peel the window clings off of the windows with an evil glint in their eyes. The way they won’t go to sleep at night without an hour of monkey business. The way they mash their food in their hair at dinner, wipe ravioli 

fingerprints all over the walls, and then flood the bathroom when they take a bath.        

The Face of Naughty

I see the way they try to stack furniture into towers and turn our home into a toddler apocalypse. The way they break things, scream for more cartoons, and have emotional breakdowns over chocolate milk and pop tarts. The way I feel like taking a shower with the door locked is a luxury vacation. The way they leave me feeling like a porcupine or some kind of road kill by the end of the day, pecked to death by vultures.

But alongside the insanity and loss of dignity, this elephant sits and reminds me that in this season, it is more important to be silly and joyful than to be serious and organized. He sits and tells me to keep a sense of humor, because it is simply just hard to stay mad when you see an elephant with a Christmas hat smiling at you from your front porch every day.

He sits, and invites me into childhood silliness, the place where monkey noises are hilarious and bodily functions are simply hysterical. The place where tickle fights and dance parties rule, where we go on long treasure hunts for acorns and use plastic straws as pirate swords to make each other walk the plank.

He sits, and something in his glow invites me into slowness, simplicity, and joy. He invites me to be a child, to receive the beauty of grace, of snow falling, grace falling.

He sits, and in all his happiness mixed with motherly torture, he is temporary, and so he reminds me of this too. He reminds me that the magic and the joy, the insanity and loss of dignity, they are all a temporary season.

And in him I see it all clearly and simply, the beauty, the wonder, the sweetness and joy laid over the exhaustion, a blanket of laughter laid softly over my weariness. The temporariness of everything. And I am grateful.          

He represents our life here in this home, just as it is, real, raw, hilarious, full of warmth, and uniquely ours. He is the perfect snapshot capturing all that is today with these precious little people and our undignified family. This is a season worth being grateful for.

Having kids keeps me grounded. I love to reflect deeply on the meaning of Advent, the incarnation, and all the mysteries of our awesome God. I feel that God is found in these things, in His Word, in the deep caverns of Christian tradition.

But the greatest, most profound thing to me today about the meaning of the season, is that God is also found right here, in the silly, smiling, flapping elephant on my front porch. He is found right here, coming to us just as we are, loving us just as we are.

Our lack of dignity is not troublesome to our God who was born in a manger that probably smelled like animal poop. Our droopy Christmas lights do not offend our God.

And even more than outward appearances of orderly lights and ribbons, God comes to our undignified and stinky hearts, too. He knows the truth. He is onto us. And so He comes, right into the yuck of our selves.

Our God is an authentic, drop-the-PR-campaign because I came here knowing the truth about you and I want to have a real relationship with you kind of God. And then He does real business in our hearts and we are never the same again. Aren’t you glad?

So I am left to be grateful, for our Christmas elephant, sitting there, and all he represents. He is a happy glowing reminder of grace that is life right now given by a God who is here with us just as we are. He is a word of gratitude for God’s blessings and favor. He is the comfort of knowing that God gives good things to His children.

He says do not struggle, but rather just be, and receive, and see the grace falling around you, and love and be loved this season.

I hope you are having a profound, enriching, occasionally silly and always magical Advent season so far, enjoying God with you in the realness of life!

Watching the snow fall...