"Well, what did you expect?"

So this is a little longer than usual, but I wanted to put this out there. This is what I spoke on at our Women's Christmas Party last week. I hope that it's inspiring for you.


I love Christmas. I love the carols and the lights. I love the food. I love the gifts - I mean…who doesn’t…and I love the anticipation.

The expectation.

When I was a kid I loved really loved the Advent calendars. Still do. They built up the anticipation so much - all those little doors, counting down the days!

I also love the decorations. I have told my husband that, should we ever have a fire in our house, get the boxes of ornaments before anything else! That’s how much they mean to me. And there’s like 10, 18 gallon Rubbermade tubs, so that fire better hold off.

This year, sadly, my expectations for my tree had to be downsized because we have a kitten. A naughty, leapy, climby kitten.

And there is no way on God’s green earth that I’m going to risk my precious ornaments being broken!

The kitten has already knocked it down…twice.

My expectations had to be curtailed.

Expectations are a huge part of Christmas.

In December of 2022, I first picked up a book titled, Emmanuel, by Ruth Chou Simons. This is now my third year reading it.

It’s beautiful, which is a bonus, but I especially love it because it helps me rethink my expectations for the holidays.

We always have expectations, don’t we? Whether big or small.

When we were little our expectations of Christmas were enormous! There’s going to be gifts! With my name on them! And they’re gonna be great! And there’s gonna be a ton of them! And they’re gonna be exactly what I want! And Mom is gonna love the present I made her in school! With paste and sequins and a paper plate.

We make lists. Perhaps, like my daughter, we illustrate them. We drop hints. We point things out in the store windows. Or aisles. Or, these days, we send links.

We plan. We expect happiness. We expect surprises. We expect yummy things to eat.

Then again, maybe your childhood Christmases were more like my husband’s. His father left them at Christmastime. He came back months later. But it marred Christmas for Colin for years. It wasn’t until we’d been married like maybe ten years that I realized that Colin finally enjoyed Christmas.

His expectations of Christmas were very, very small. His expectations were that it would disappoint.

I remember being disappointed because of my expectations once or twice at Christmas. My mom worked at a bookstore and she got a great employee discount. So year after year, we received book after book.

Now don’t get me wrong: I love books. But when you’re 13 and you want new clothes…books don’t always cut it.

“Great…” you say, being handed a gift to unwrap and feeling the telltale edges of a hardback book. “Thanks, Mom.”

I know this makes me sound terribly greedy and ungrateful. But there it is. We didn’t have a lot of money, growing up. And Mom was doing her best and sometimes I didn’t appreciate that very much.

Expectations can ruin our attitudes.

Kinda like when I was expecting my first child - literally “expecting”, right? The due date came and went and even though I knew perfectly well that babies rarely show up on their due date…I felt like Christmas had come and Santa had forgotten me.
Our expectations can lead to dis-satisfaction.

And that brings me back to the book.

Simons writes, “Our problem is that we replace expectancy with expectations.”

To have “expectations” is to expect things of people, places, things, toys, events. We have unrealistic presumptions and impossible standards.

But to live with “expectancy” is to set our sights on God’s promises - rather than the empty pursuit of all that cannot truly satisfy.

I remember one Thanksgiving maybe ten years ago - I decided we’d eat at the big table downstairs where all the food could be brought to the table on Colin’s great aunt’s serving dishes and we’d pass the potatoes in a traditional kind of way, rather than use our too-small usual dining table where we have to serve buffet-style.

That table is right by the kitchen. Where everything is baked. And everything is washed. Nice. And. Close.

And so we tromped the dishes downstairs and set a beautiful table and then we chowed down and then we were done.

And then we had to bring everything upstairs again.

My husband told me to sit down and rest a little. “Let us know when you need help”.

But I couldn’t rest. There were things that had to be done and if I sat too long I’d never get up again, right? So I began tromping up and down the stairs with dishes while the others played a game. I made loud dish-clanging type sounds (but it was my good china, so not too many.) I probably coughed. But they didn’t notice. So finally, exhausted and feeling ignored, I hollered. And then I burst into tears.

Colin, non-plussed, said, “I told you to tell us when you needed help!”

I thought they’d be able to see what was happening ten feet away. I EXPECTED them to notice. To read my mind, perhaps?

My expectations were wrong.

Kinda like with Mary and Martha. Martha got cross when the expectations she had of her sister were unmet. Martha was sitting there fixing the “Thanksgiving” meal and cleaning it up afterward, and Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus.

And Martha had had enough.

But do you remember what Jesus said?

“Martha, Martha. You are worried about many things. But Mary has chosen the good part.” Sitting at the feet of Jesus. Listening to him talk. Basking in his Jesus-ness.

That’s the good stuff.

Now hear me: It doesn’t mean that what Martha was doing was wrong! What it means is that stressing and having unrealistic expectations of those around you - and of yourself  isn’t the best thing for you. Or anyone.

The author continues: “If you expect Christmastime to make you feel good about your family relationships, you will be disappointed. If you expect your spouse to read your mind about what makes a holiday season special, you will be disappointed. If you expect gifts from others to make you feel loved and remembered, you will be disappointed. You see, what we believe we are waiting for in this season…determines the difference between whether we are overjoyed or overwhelmed.”

I mentioned that this is my third year reading this book. The first year was 2022. By Thanksgiving of that year I had, to quote Charles Dickens, “Great Expectations” of getting everything right, having perfect gifts, wrapping, meals, interactions, etc. etc.

But then I began to read this book and I began, slowly, to set those expectations aside. My daughter and I talked about it, as I’d given her the book, too. I was open to the theoretical idea that an “imperfect” Christmas would not mean the end of the world as I knew it.

On December 18th of that year my husband and I flew to NYC. We had a great time. In the meantime, back at the ranch, a blizzard was approaching Minnesota. My son and oldest daughter begged off of work early and both drove down from northern Minnesota to be home in time for Christmas, should the storm interrupt their travels.

Just in case the worst happened and I got back a day or so late, I told them where to find my grocery shopping list - which I’d left ready for the day I got home.  As we rode in a taxi from Midtown to JFK airport to head home on the 21st, I was talking through the list with the girls as they shopped.

I even lined them up to wrap gifts - which I had separated out already into each person’s bags to make things easier for me when I got home.

I wanted everything to be ready and perfect for baking and all of those last-minute details when I arrived home. I could almost smell the baking cookies, taste the bread, hear the perfect music, see the gifts piling up beneath the tree.

Yes, I’d embraced the theory that having an “imperfect” Christmas was ok. I was not about to take any risks.

We arrived in Minneapolis. Almost home!

We didn’t leave MInneapolis for  three days.

I texted my sisters in Washington State. “Why don’t you just rent a car and drive home?” one of them asked.

Clearly she has never experienced a Minnesota Blizzard.

There was no driving home. There was no flying home.

We did, at least, manage to get a hotel room. Twice, due to the fact that we went through airport security three times. Expecting each time to be THE time!

Over the course of the three days I accidentally dumped my husband’s contacts down the drain. I broke a toe. The airline lost our luggage. And my husband couldn’t sleep because he’d unthinkingly packed his meds in said luggage.

We also almost witnessed a shooting at the Mall of America.

Finally, mid-afternoon on Christmas Eve, after landing in Sioux Falls that morning and waiting for the highway to open up for traffic, we got home.

My expectations?
Completely annihilated.
But we were home. And that was all that mattered.

Some people from church here had brought the kids some Christmas treats. Sausage and crackers and banana bread. That was what we had in liu of the long list of things I’d planned to bake. The things I’d imagined. The things I thought a “perfect” Christmas required.

We were so grateful for that banana bread!

My daughter Katie said, “It’s kinda like that book you gave me, Mom! Saying that everything will be okay in Jesus even if our expectations aren’t met!”

I’d been thinking the same thing.

God knew we needed the wisdom of this author. He knew what was coming.

The next day, Christmas day, mere minutes after we finished opening gifts, we got a phone call from my nephew.

My mother had just passed away.

God knew we needed to change our expectations. He knew what was coming. He knew that I needed to realize that Christmas could still be Christmas without the usual accouterments. Without, even, the usual people.

Or, to quote Dr. Seuss, Christmas is still Christmas “without ribbons. Without tags. Without packages, boxes or bags.”

That night we sat around the dinner table, using, for the first time, Mom’s china that she’d handed down to me the previous summer. We ate and cried and smiled and remembered and none of the Christmas confections that didn’t get made mattered. It didn’t matter that I’d missed my favorite radio broadcast of the entire year (Christmas Eve from Kings College, Cambridge) or that the ham was dry because I’d been too distracted to pay it any attention.

What mattered was that we loved each other and, more importantly, that God loved us and we knew that Grandma was with her Savior.

Simons writes, “Expectations leave us weary and discontent. They leave us unfulfilled and doubtful about God…But expectancy is anticipation mingled with joy. It’s believing that God is who he says he is while waiting patiently for his good will to be revealed.

Expectancy remembers that we already have more than we deserve. Expectation demands more.”

Galatians 4:4 says, “But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman…”

No one expected the Messiah to be born in a stable to poor, barely-married parents, far from home. No one expected the shepherds to come rejoicing or the angels to keep showing up. No one looked in expectation for gifts and honor from foreign kings or a brilliant star to lead them.

Nothing worked out the way Mary must have expected.
Her Pinterest Board didn’t include any of this. ?

But none of it was a surprise to God. He does things in his way. In his time. God looked down upon the world and said…“NOW”

I’ve been reading the book, This is Happiness, by Niall Williams. Williams is an Irish author - hilariously dry humor - the kind where you have to read a sentence twice, sometimes, to get the subtleties.

In describing the grandmother he writes, “As a shield against despair she had decided early on to live with the expectation of doom, an inspired tactic, because, by expecting it, it never fully arrived.”

Expectations, right? Whether of doom or of joy! Whether pessimism or optimism.

Expectations leave us hanging. But when we live expectantly, believing that God will show up in the midst of even our greatest sorrows and disappointments, then we are able to handle whatever crazy comes our way.

When we live expectantly, we’re on the lookout for the amazing.

May your Christmas season be filled with expectant joy!