The upcoming Christmas celebration brings with it a familiar mixture of anticipation and anxiety. Stores are already displaying decorations, music fills the air, and to-do lists grow longer by the day. But what if this year’s upcoming celebration could be different more meaningful, less stressful, and centered on what truly matters?
Mattese Lecque, retired Major with the United States Army Reserves and woman of unwavering faith, offers a transformative perspective on the Christmas celebration. Having spent holidays away from family during military service, witnessed the impact of seasonal stress through her healthcare work, and navigated personal loss during festive seasons, she understands both the beauty and challenges of Christmas.
Through Mattese’s guidance, your Christmas celebration transforms from overwhelming obligation into authentic joy, spiritual renewal, and lasting memories built on faith, family, and genuine connection.
The True Heart of Christmas Celebration
Before planning your upcoming Christmas celebration, pause to remember the profound truth at its center. Christmas celebrates the ultimate act of divine love God entering human existence as a vulnerable infant, bringing hope to a broken world.
The first Christmas wasn’t marked by expensive gifts, elaborate decorations, or social media-worthy moments. It happened in a humble stable with shepherds as witnesses. This stark reality reminds us that the upcoming celebration should focus on love, sacrifice, humility, and spiritual significance rather than material excess.
Mattese’s book “You Can’t Make Me Doubt Him” reveals her deep faith foundation. For her, the upcoming Christmas isn’t primarily about traditions and festivities but about celebrating unshakeable spiritual truth that hope came into the world, love made the ultimate sacrifice, and transformation remains possible for everyone.
When you ground your upcoming celebration in its true meaning, everything else falls into proper perspective. Decorating becomes an expression of joy rather than competition. Gift-giving reflects love rather than obligation. Gatherings create genuine connection rather than perfect performances.
Planning Your Upcoming Christmas Celebration with Intention
Mattese’s military background taught her that successful missions require strategic planning. Apply this wisdom to your Christmas celebration by preparing intentionally rather than reacting frantically.
Start with Spiritual Preparation
Before addressing logistics, prepare your heart spiritually for the upcoming Christmas. Begin now with daily practices that ground you in Christmas’s true meaning:
Daily Advent Reflection – Set aside time each morning to read scripture, pray, and reflect on the Christmas story. This spiritual discipline ensures your upcoming Christmas celebration stays centered on faith.
Gratitude Practice – Mattese’s military service taught her profound appreciation for simple blessings. Each day leading up to your upcoming Christmas celebration, identify specific gifts in your life family, health, shelter, freedom, faith.
Service Commitment – As an active member of Saint Peter’s AME Church in North Charleston, Mattese embodies the truth that service transforms holidays. Plan specific ways to serve others during your upcoming Christmas celebration.
Set Realistic Expectations
Many people sabotage their upcoming Christmas celebration by carrying unrealistic expectations guaranteed to disappoint. Perfect gatherings, flawless meals, delighted reactions to every gift, and harmonious family dynamics rarely match reality.
Mattese teaches that it doesn’t matter if you were born with nothing or what resources you have meaningful celebration doesn’t require perfection. Your upcoming Christmas celebration will likely include burnt cookies, awkward conversations, gifts that miss the mark, and imperfect moments. That’s real life, not failure.
Give yourself permission for your upcoming Christmas celebration to be authentically imperfect rather than artificially flawless.
Create a Practical Budget
Financial stress poisons many Christmas celebrations when cultural pressure to spend lavishly collides with budget reality. Your upcoming Christmas celebration doesn’t require debt to prove love or create meaning.
Determine what you can afford without financial strain. Communicate honestly with family about simplified gift exchanges. Consider homemade presents, service gifts offering time and talents, or experiences rather than material items.
Mattese’s message that you can overcome obstacles regardless of circumstances applies perfectly. Limited finances don’t limit your ability to create a meaningful upcoming Christmas celebration.
Making Your Christmas Celebration Meaningful
Transform your upcoming celebration from exhausting performance into authentic joy through intentional choices.
Faith-Centered Traditions
Make spiritual practices central to your upcoming Christmas celebration:
Attend Christmas Services – Plan to attend Christmas Eve or Christmas Day services. Corporate worship connects your upcoming Christmas celebration to its spiritual foundation and the larger faith community.
Family Devotions – Read the nativity story together during your upcoming celebration. Discuss what the Christmas message means to each family member. Pray together, thanking God for specific blessings.
Sacred Music – Include hymns and carols that center on Christ during your Christmas celebration, not just secular holiday songs. Music carries spiritual truths that shape hearts and minds.
Connection Over Perfection
During your upcoming Christmas celebration, prioritize genuine connection over impressive presentation:
Protected Time – Schedule device-free periods during your upcoming Christmas. Put away phones during meals. Have meaningful conversations. Listen actively when others speak.
Simple Activities – Your upcoming Christmas celebration doesn’t require elaborate entertainment. Play board games, share stories, take walks together, or simply enjoy each other’s presence.
Memory Making – The most treasured memories from your upcoming Christmas celebration won’t involve expensive gifts but authentic moments laughter around the table, heartfelt conversations, shared experiences.
Service and Generosity
Make service integral to your Christmas celebration, following Mattese’s example of community involvement:
Family Service Projects – Volunteer together at a food bank, adopt a family in need, visit a nursing home, or serve Christmas dinner at a shelter during your Christmas celebration.
Generosity Beyond Gifts – Your upcoming Christmas celebration offers opportunities for radical generosity anonymous gifts to those struggling, donations to worthy causes, or acts of kindness for neighbors.
Through her work as Chairperson of the Burke Foundation for Student Enrichment and Mentoring, Mattese demonstrates that serving others transforms celebrations from self-focused to purpose-driven.
Navigating Challenges During Your Upcoming Christmas Celebration
Acknowledge the real challenges many people face so your upcoming Christmas celebration addresses them with grace.
When Grief Shadows Celebration
For those who have lost loved ones, the Christmas celebration intensifies pain. Empty chairs, impossible traditions, and pressure to be joyful when heartbroken create emotional turmoil.
Mattese emphasizes the process of grief and how to not succumb to depression. She teaches about fueling your life with things that may leave a legacy on your behalf and the deceased one.
Honor your loss during the Christmas celebration. Light a candle for your loved one. Share favorite memories. Continue meaningful traditions. Include their name in conversations. Give yourself permission to feel both grief and gratitude simultaneously.
When Family Dynamics Are Difficult
The Christmas celebration often forces interaction with challenging family members. Old wounds surface, toxic patterns repeat, and tension threatens gatherings.
Establish boundaries before your upcoming Christmas celebration arrives. Decide in advance how long you’ll stay at gatherings, which topics you won’t discuss, and what behavior you won’t tolerate.
Mattese’s military leadership taught her that effective leaders maintain both compassion and boundaries. Apply this wisdom to family dynamics during your upcoming Christmas celebration.
When Resources Are Limited
Limited finances, health challenges, geographic distance, or other constraints may restrict your upcoming Christmas celebration. These limitations don’t prevent meaningful observance.
Focus on what you can control your attitude, your gratitude, your generosity of spirit, your presence for others. The upcoming Christmas celebration measures success by love shared, not money spent.
Creating Lasting Traditions for Your Christmas Celebration
Mattese’s memoir “The Make-Over: Re-imagining & Recreating Myself” demonstrates that transformation involves examining what works and changing what doesn’t. Apply this to your upcoming Christmas celebration traditions.
Evaluate Current Practices
Which traditions enhance your Christmas celebration’s spiritual meaning and family connection? Which exhaust you without adding value? Give yourself permission to release traditions that no longer serve you.
Start New Traditions
Your Christmas celebration offers opportunity to establish new practices reflecting current values and circumstances:
Christmas Eve Service and Simple Meal – Attend evening worship then share soup and bread at home, focusing on simplicity and spiritual preparation.
Advent Service Calendar – Instead of chocolate advent calendars, create a service advent calendar where each day includes an act of kindness or generosity during your upcoming Christmas celebration.
Story Sharing – During your upcoming Christmas celebration, have each family member share their favorite Christmas memory or what they’re most grateful for this year.
Birthday Cake for Jesus – During your upcoming Christmas celebration, bake a birthday cake for Jesus, reinforcing that Christmas celebrates His birth, not just gift exchange.
The Legacy of Your Upcoming Christmas Celebration
Mattese’s focus on legacy provides powerful framework for Christmas planning. Years from now, what do you want people to remember about your Christmas celebration?
Not the expensive gifts or perfect decorations, but your presence, love, generosity, faith, and ability to create meaningful moments amid imperfection.
When you approach your Christmas celebration through the legacy lens, priorities clarify. Energy flows toward what matters long-term spiritual depth, genuine connection, service to others, and modeling healthy priorities.
Through her community leadership and educational work, Mattese demonstrates commitment to shaping future generations. Your Christmas celebration teaches values more powerfully than lectures how you handle stress, express gratitude, serve others, manage finances, honor faith, and create meaning.
Model the upcoming Christmas celebration you hope children will create in their own lives grounded in faith, focused on people over things, generous toward others, resilient through challenges, and authentic rather than performative.
A Prayer for Your Upcoming Christmas Celebration
As someone whose faith sustains her through every challenge, Mattese would encourage approaching your upcoming Christmas celebration with prayer:
Prepare my heart for the Christmas celebration. Help me remember what truly matters celebrating Your ultimate gift of love. Give me wisdom to say no to what depletes and yes to what brings authentic joy. Strengthen me to extend grace to difficult people, generosity to those in need, and patience to myself when things don’t go perfectly. Let this Christmas celebration reflect not my ability to perform but Your love working through me. Fill my celebration with genuine gratitude, authentic connection, and lasting peace.
Conclusion:
The upcoming Christmas by Mattese Lecque isn’t about perfect execution of holiday requirements. It’s about preparing your heart to celebrate the greatest gift ever given while extending love, grace, and generosity to everyone you encounter.
Your upcoming celebration can overcome stress and create meaningful memories despite limitations. Honoring both joy and grief is possible. Boundaries can protect your peace. What truly matters faith, family, service, and legacy deserves your focus and energy.
As the Christmas celebration draws near, give yourself the gift of perspective. Remember the reason for the season. Practice gratitude daily. Serve others generously. Release perfection. Embrace authenticity. Protect what matters most.
Mattese has demonstrated through military service, healthcare career, and community leadership that you have everything needed to navigate this season with grace. Your Christmas celebration isn’t about what you do but who you are and how you love.
Start preparing now spiritually, emotionally, and practically. Your upcoming Christmas celebration awaits with potential for genuine joy, spiritual renewal, and lasting memories. Make it count. Make it meaningful. Make it a celebration worthy of the profound truth it honors.
Your heart-ready Christmas celebration begins with choices you make today.
