How Could I Enjoy Christmas So Far from Home?

By Jessa Sebastian

My family and I had recently moved to Spain, and while things were great in the beginning, my attitude changed when the holiday season approached.

Image

young woman enjoying cityscape in Spain

The first major holiday our family celebrated after moving from the United States was Christmas. We had been living in Santander, Spain, for about four months when the weather shifted and, with its chill, the holiday season began.

Up until that point, I had been experiencing the ecstasies of a new culture with gusto and appreciation. While there had been challenges, they hadn’t bothered me significantly because everything about our new life was magical and wondrous.

Perhaps it was the natural way of culture shock, or maybe it was the realization that we would not be spending Christmas with our loved ones, but my attitude changed near the end of November. The unfamiliarity of everything around me, the challenge of learning a new language, the feeling of not quite fitting in, the difficulty of my husband stepping away from the Church, and the isolation and jealousy I felt while watching my family members across the world spend time together all collided and left me feeling shattered.

While I knew in my heart that Christmas was truly about Christ and not about circumstances, I couldn’t shake this feeling that I was missing the spirit of the season. The more I tried to count my blessings or read accounts of those who had survived Christmases more difficult than mine, the worse I felt. Through these stories, I felt like my struggles were being dismissed—like I was being told that I should be happy even if I didn’t have enough of the things I felt I truly needed. These stories almost seemed like dismissive commands rather than words of comfort. All I could hear was that I should gratefully and cheerfully accept my situation, no matter what I was giving up.

All I could seem to do was tally my trials since arriving in Spain.

Finding Joy in Any Circumstance

One day when I was feeling empty, I decided to read Shepherds, Why This Jubilee? by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. In this book, he talks about discovering the true meaning of Christmas, and his words brought some truths I was missing into sharp focus. He wrote:

“I must speak of Christmases (and many other days in our individual and collective lives) that for whatever reason may not be very happy or seem to be ‘the season to be jolly.’

“For many people in many places this may not be an entirely happy Christmas, one not filled with complete joy.”¹

I began to read more carefully. Here was someone speaking to me in my misery. “Christmas is joyful not because it is a season or decade or lifetime without pain and privation, but precisely because life does hold those moments for us.”²

I couldn’t quite fathom what he was teaching. Christmas is happy because life is sad? That was the opposite of how I viewed Christmas.

He continued: “In this life no one can have real love without eventually dealing with real loss, and we certainly can’t rejoice over one’s birth and the joy of living unless we are prepared to understand and accommodate and accept with some grace the inevitability … of difficulty and trouble and death. These are God’s gifts to us—birth and life and death and salvation, the whole divine experience in all its richness and complexity.”³

I found myself nodding in agreement with Elder Holland’s words and felt tears roll down my cheeks.

I realized that the emotions surrounding Christmas can be incredibly complex. The Nativity and the story of Christmas itself is so beautiful and so simple. Our Savior chose to come to this earth so humbly in Mary and Joseph’s poverty. His coming did not immediately change their circumstances, and He wasn’t an instant fix for their circumstances. But still, they and the whole world found joy in His coming and knew they would find salvation in Him one day.

With that in mind, how can we make Christmas special?

How do we find abundance amid scarcity?

Well, that can depend on our personal definitions of abundance and enjoyment. I think a good place to start is focusing on how perfectly and abundantly Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love us. I believe that even in the times when we may bow our heads in despair and it seems there is no peace on earth, these words hold true:

God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men.4

Elder Holland’s words and my shifted focus on Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ’s love brought just enough light and hope for me to move past my jealousy and longing for home and to begin noticing and participating in all the wonderful events happening during the holiday season in my new environment.

As I walked through the streets, I could smell the nutty aroma coming from the stalls selling castañas (roasted chestnuts), and a friend invited my family and me to her home to demonstrate how to roast them. We watched the children write letters to los Tres Reyes Magos (the three Wise Men) and witnessed how this was an extension of our own understanding of the Nativity story. I asked for a calling at church that would allow me to participate according to my abilities. We tasted sweet turrón (nougat) and polvorones (shortbread). I volunteered at my daughters’ school and spoke English with middle-grade students. We sang familiar hymns in an unfamiliar tongue during sacrament meeting. And across the city, numerous Belenes (Nativity scenes) were displayed, showing depictions of the city of Bethlehem and the birth of Christ. I had never seen anything like them, and they quickly became my favorite part of the season.

That season was one of the most memorable Christmastimes I’d ever had.

Refocusing on the Savior’s Light

I realized that if we are surrounded by the unfamiliar or the effects of difficult challenges, we can find familiar signs of Christ that indeed bring comfort and joy to our circumstances by pausing and changing our perspective.

Because of the winter solstice, which happens each year just before we celebrate the birth of the Savior, every day in the northern hemisphere begins getting a little brighter. There is more and more light in the world each day. This is a beautiful metaphor for how the birth of Christ brings light into our lives, even if by degrees. If you are struggling, you may not feel a rush of light at Christmastime. But just as the sun slowly brightens the day, gently warms the earth, so can the love of God quietly and tenderly fill our life with light—no matter how small the spark.

Not all was suddenly made right that Christmas, but I felt at peace as I focused on Christ. As we allow Him to help us, slowly, constantly, His love will always find us and change our hearts for the better.