This year, Christmas hit my house a little different.

My oldest is struggling with it. Not in a dramatic, doors-slammed, “I hate Christmas” kind of way, but in that quieter, heavier way that’s worse because you can’t fix it with cocoa and a movie night. Between work shifts, school deadlines, homework that never ends, and trying to balance a boyfriend with family time, the season has started to feel less like magic and more like another obligation stacked on an already full plate. One night she finally said it out loud. “I don’t know… it just doesn’t feel like Christmas this year.” So I did the thing every parent hates doing. I apologized.

I told her I was sorry she was feeling it. Sorry that the weight of growing up had landed squarely on December. Sorry that the season that once felt effortless now required energy she wasn’t sure she had. And then I apologized for something else, something worse.

I told her it wasn’t going to get any easier. Because this is the moment we don’t warn our kids about. This is the invisible line you cross where Christmas stops happening to you and starts demanding something from you. The older you get, the more the world pulls at you. Responsibilities multiply. Schedules collide. And the magic that once chased you down now waits quietly to see if you’ll bother looking for it.

I told her the truth, spoken gently, but without sugarcoating it: This doesn’t get easier. You have to purpose to find it. And that’s when it hit me, this isn’t just a Christmas problem. This is a faith problem. This is a church problem. This is a human problem.

Because the same thing that steals Christmas wonder as we grow older is the same thing that slowly pulls us away from God. Not rebellion. Not anger. Just life. Just busyness. Just drifting far enough that one day you look up and realize the joy feels distant, but you can’t remember when it happened. And that’s where this story really begins.

There’s a moment most of us hit, usually somewhere between paying bills, raising kids, burning dinner, and realizing it’s already December again, where we quietly say, “Something feels… off.” Something feels distant. Christmas feels flat. Wonder feels like something we used to have, back when life didn’t hurt as much and the calendar didn’t own us.

We don’t say it out loud. We whisper it to ourselves while standing in a Target aisle at 9:47 p.m., staring at empty shelves where joy was supposed to be. We mutter it under our breath while untangling Christmas lights that have somehow become more knotted than our theology. We feel it when the songs come on, songs that used to make us cry, and now just sound like background noise while we scroll.

And here’s the uncomfortable truth we don’t like to admit, personally or corporately: Christmas didn’t lose its magic, and God didn’t move. We just got busy, and drifted. That’s not an accusation. That’s a diagnosis.

Malachi doesn’t mince words. “Return to Me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord of hosts. (Malachi 3:7) Notice what God doesn’t say. He doesn’t say, “I wandered off.” He doesn’t say, “I got distracted.” He doesn’t say, “I needed space.” “Return” implies movement. It implies distance. It implies someone left;  and, let’s be honest, it wasn’t Him.

God names the direction plainly because He loves us too much to gaslight us. The drift wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t rebellion with a soundtrack. It was subtle. Respectable. Busy. Ministry-approved. It was one skipped prayer that turned into a habit. One rushed devotion that turned into silence. One “this season is just crazy” that quietly became a year. We didn’t run from God. We just stopped walking toward Him. And then one day we looked up and said, “Why does He feel so far away?”

Scripture never paints God as the one who wanders off. He’s not the distracted Father who forgot where He put us. He’s not the emotionally unavailable deity who needs space to “work on Himself.” Over and over again, the pattern is painfully consistent: God stays. We stray. James says it with brutal simplicity: “Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.”

Not chase Him down.

Not perform better.

Not clean yourself up first. Just… draw near.

When God feels far, it’s rarely because He stepped back. It’s because we slowly stepped away, one obligation at a time, one notification at a time, one ministry task that replaced actual intimacy. And the wild part? We often do this in His name.

We confuse activity for proximity.

We confuse service for relationship.

We confuse talking about God with actually being with Him. And then we’re shocked when our souls feel hollow.

Now let’s talk about Christmas, because we’ve done the exact same thing to it. Think about Christmas when you were a kid. It wasn’t magical because the lights were better. Half of us grew up with decorations that looked like they survived a house fire and a theological debate. The ornaments were mismatched. The tree leaned slightly left. Someone always wrapped gifts like they were fleeing the law. And yet, it was magic.

Why? Because we leaned into it.

We waited.

We watched.

We wondered.

Advent felt like forever. Christmas Eve might as well have been a biblical famine. Wonder was thick in the air because we were present enough to notice it.

Now we’re adults. And Christmas becomes a checklist:

Buy the gifts

Cook the food

Survive the family

Don’t snap at anyone in public

Pretend you’re not tired

Show up to everything

Smile through the burnout.  And then, after reducing Christmas to a logistical nightmare, we have the audacity to say: “It just doesn’t feel the same anymore.”

No kidding. You don’t feel wonder when you’re sprinting through holy ground like it’s an airport terminal.

Luke tells us something quietly profound about the first Christmas: “All who heard it wondered…” (Luke 2:17–18) Wonder followed obedience and proximity, not announcement alone.

The shepherds didn’t wonder because an angel shouted louder. They wondered because they went closer. They moved toward the message. They leaned in. They left their fields. They disrupted their routine. They didn’t consume Christmas. They encountered it.

Here’s where this gets uncomfortably personal for the Church: We’ve replaced proximity with programming. We stack services. We add events. We schedule wonder like it can be mass-produced. We assume if we announce it loudly enough, people will feel something.

But wonder doesn’t come from amplification. It comes from attention. You can’t manufacture awe while rushing past Presence.

Matthew hands us the entire Christmas thesis in one verse: “They shall call His name Immanuel (which means, God with us).” (Matthew 1:23) Not God yelling from heaven. Not God waiting at the top of a ladder. Not God saying, “Figure it out and get back to Me.”

God with us.

Near.

Present.

Embodied.

Christmas isn’t about God demanding we climb higher, it’s about God choosing to come lower. And somehow, every year, we manage to turn God with us into God scheduled between other obligations. We celebrate nearness by staying distracted. We honor incarnation by staying distant. We proclaim Emmanuel while living like God only shows up if we pencil Him in.

Here’s the part we really don’t like to talk about: Churches drift too. Not into heresy… most of the time… but into habit. Into efficiency. Into seasonal autopilot. We know how to do Christmas.

We’ve got the services planned before Thanksgiving. We’ve got the series titles locked in. We’ve got the graphics polished. We’ve got the candles ready. And somehow, despite all of that, we end up offering people a beautifully wrapped box that feels strangely empty.

Why?

Because we can celebrate the story without sitting in the Presence. Because we can preach incarnation while avoiding intimacy. Because we can fill calendars while neglecting closeness. And the people feel it.

They don’t leave saying, “That was wrong.” They leave saying, “That was… nice.” And “nice” has killed more wonder than heresy ever has.

Let’s say this plainly:

 Busyness is not spiritual maturity.

Exhaustion is not faithfulness.

Full calendars are not full hearts.

We wear burnout like a badge of honor and then wonder why joy won’t show up. We fill every square inch of December and call it devotion. And then we’re shocked when God feels quiet. He’s not quiet. We’re just loud.

Here’s the grace we forget, both personally and corporately: The distance is an illusion. God didn’t pack up and leave when you got tired. He didn’t withdraw when your prayers got shorter. He didn’t step back when wonder faded. He’s been right where He’s always been. Waiting, not angrily, not impatiently, but faithfully.

The moment you turn your face toward Him, He’s there. The moment you slow down enough to feel Christmas again, it shows up. Not because you recreated something. But because you returned.

Malachi wasn’t threatening. He was inviting. “Return to Me.”

Not fix everything.

Not prove yourself.

Not rebuild the magic from scratch.

Return.

Return to silence.

Return to Scripture.

Return to sitting instead of sprinting.

Return to presence over performance.

Wonder isn’t lost, it’s neglected. And neglected things don’t need replacement. They need attention.

We don’t need a new faith. We don’t need a more “magical” Christmas. We don’t need better circumstances. We need proximity. Sit with Him again. Open the story again. Let the silence speak. Let awe catch up.

Because whether it’s God or Christmas, the truth is the same:

The wonder never left.

The Presence never moved.

We just stopped drawing near, and when we do, He’s already there.

Arms open.

Unmoved.

Unchanged.

Waiting like He always has been.

Hospitality, at its core, is an act of nearness. It’s choosing to close the distance instead of guarding it. It’s opening the door when it would be easier to stay busy. It’s making space, on purpose, for presence.

That’s what God did first.

Christmas is the ultimate act of hospitality. God didn’t shout instructions from heaven. He stepped into the room. Immanuel, God with us. He crossed the distance we created and invited us back into relationship, back into wonder, back into the table fellowship of grace.

Here’s the uncomfortable mirror: if we are willing to receive that nearness from God, we are also called to offer it to others. In a season obsessed with speed, hospitality looks like slowing down. In a culture addicted to noise, hospitality looks like attention. In a world trained to keep its distance, hospitality looks like drawing near.

This Christmas, wonder won’t be found in better decorations, fuller calendars, or louder celebrations. It will be found in proximity, in choosing to sit, to listen, to be present with God and with one another.

Because when we draw near, doors open. Tables fill. Hearts soften. God has already stepped toward us. The only question left this season is simple, and painfully honest:

Will we draw near too?

Stay Salty & Burn Bright