In the U.S., the annual Christmas season has an undetermined beginning (is it July? October? November?) and it also has a hard stop. The end date could be December 25, or another day, but that day is the end. I’m sure I’m not alone with a list of extra things to finish – shopping, wrapping, visiting relatives, partying with friends, delivering, decorating, card issuing, baking, and whatnot – by this ‘deadline.’ After the Christmas celebration is over, the mood changes from preparation and celebration to taking a deep breath and chilling out until the year ends. Post Christmas is not when we prepare, that time has passed.

Take wreath making as an example. It’s my unique example. As a young adult my dad owned and managed a Christmas tree farm. He included his family in the fun of selling cut your own Christmas trees starting the day after thanksgiving when we were all hanging around. His ingenuity and business skills created a mail order wreath making business. After all, we had plenty of balsam branches. My father taught me how to make my first wreath and I loved doing it.

And I have never stopped making wreaths during December. I enjoy it so much. I have also had a business selling wreaths, and I have made wreaths to give friends, work colleagues, family members, and my own doors. The point is, I always make a wreath. It seems to be a piece of who I am now. My dad’s tree farm is long gone, a memory, and so is my dad. But I continue to feel that to make at least one wreath, from natural balsam and pine branches, with pine cones, berries, and a homemade bow, is a simple joy all by itself.

I have had to be creative in acquiring some supplies for the wreaths. Without a tree farm backing me up, I no longer have a ready supply of branches at my disposal. Over the years, it has worked to stop by the garden section at Home Depot and walk out with their discarded balsam branches from their own Christmas tree sales.

This year, my “Christmas deadline” seemed to arise quickly and immediately. For whatever reason, the list of activities to finish by December 25 was much longer than the time I had available. I was very busy. I fit in a quick visit to Home Depot and, as I expected, found a hefty bundle of balsam branches and carried them out of the store, free of charge. I was excited to have them, anticipating the fun I would have creating my annual Christmas wreath.

I stuffed the branches in the back seat of my car and rode around with them and a fresh, balsamy scent for a few days. Then the branches ended up on the lawn, and then up on a plastic Adirondack chair still outside.

So the end of the story is, the branches are still on the chair – through Christmas and weeks after Christmas day. A wreath never emerged from this pile of branches.

From Christmas Day forward, that pile keeps reminding me that I couldn’t find the time to do what I wanted to do and missed that piece of the Christmas season. I’ve had to accept that my plan was unfinished. (I had fleeting thought about making the wreath after Christmas was over, just to say I did it, but no, it is not the same!)

It has also been hard to finish this post. There does not seem to be a solid conclusion to a post about something being unfinished.

As I think about any larger lessons to glean from an unfinished wreath, a scripture comes to mind. I John 3:2 (ESV) seems to speak to being unfinished on a whole different level. “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared…” In other words, similar to the pile of branches that could have been a wreath, we are not in the form we could be. We are not finished.

Maybe I struggle when I do not finish something in the time I set for it. There is a tension in not finishing that is uncomfortable and seeks resolution. And I think under the surface of life, we experience dissonance in being in process, knowing we still have far to go and are not finished. I deeply want to be complete, finished, polished, and whole. It is easy to impose a deadline on God to make this happen on schedule.

Like, by Christmas, I should be a beautiful Christmas wreath hanging on someone’s door rather than a pile of leftover branches from Home Depot. If that is the plan, it is what I should be. So why am I outside, waiting to be woven into a wreath, after Christmas is over? It doesn’t seem right to be unfinished. It feels raw and painful, and I want it to be done.

Scripture, via Paul’s writings, is honest about where we start and end up as we traverse our lives in this world. For not only do I feel the pain of realizing I will always live in an unfinished state, but according to Romans 8:22-23 (ESV), we – all who have the Spirit, and the whole creation feels this on some level.

“For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”

This post is still unfinished. It is meant to be.