Matilda's Christmas complex

Around December many years ago, I used to go with other curious boys to watch rehearsals for Christmas carols. We would sit at the back of the church and watch hypnotised as the choir went through all the popular carols.

Their leader, Matilda, was a lovely woman with a motherly figure and a belly laugh. Everyone loved her. What a big melodious voice she had, and how passionate she was about the things of God! 

Makerere Full Gospel Church choir

My father always said Christmas was the time to give, and would give us money to buy gifts for the people we liked. I bought Matilda a gift, and waited with longing to deliver it on Christmas day immediately after the carols. 

But that Christmas, Matilda didn't show up. We were shocked, for it was unheard of for her to miss church, let alone Christmas. What had happened? Who was going to lead the choir into carols? 

After a little more waiting, the carols began without Matilda. It later turned out that the tailor had not finished making her new dress, and Matilda decided to stay away because she felt it would be too embarrassing for her to attend Christmas without putting on something new. 

It's flabbergasting how many people today suffer from Matilda's Christmas complex. Christmas pegged on things is cosmetic Christmas and makes us miss the true meaning. It's not the merry hoopla that surrounds the day but the hearts with which we live that matters. 

The story of Jesus who and whose birth we celebrate demonstrates that love in its quintessential form is priceless. No one is rich enough to afford the kind of love that sent Him on the cross to die for the sins of mankind. His birth and death therefore hold more meaning when we walk the love He showed; being kind one to another consistently and savouring the joy that comes from being that considerate, than waiting for one December day and returning to our selfish living the day after.

Merry Christmas.