This is a question I hear often. I find that I have become a bit immune to it, as there are so many different things that have caused people to ask this of me.
My father in law asked this of us when we said we were getting married. My friends asked me this when I said I was marrying Jeff. (Hey – don’t make assumptions. 
His friends exchanged money at the reception, because of bets that he wouldn’t go through with it.) We’ve heard it in conjunction to the number of children we have, the last house we bought, Jeff leaving his job and most recently when we took on a book job that should have been an eight week project and turned it into three weeks.
When I hear this term I think of an Indiana Jones scene, when the Austrian gal is driving the speed boat. I think of the old joke about “What is the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” I think of the year we had heavy duty obligations every day from Thanksgiving to New Year.
That year we took our family to Maryland for the purpose of considering a move there. The only time that we could orchestrate a trip was right before Christmas. The trip culminated in our leaving Maryland on Christmas Eve morning – stopping in Pennsylvania to visit my aunt and leaving there around midnight. This meant we were driving home in the early hours of Christmas Day.
Besides moments of wondering whether or not the Rapture had taken place, since we were the only car on the turnpike – for hours! – we also drove past house after house after house with lights on and obvious Christmas flurry still being completed.
At around 2:30 am, we stopped at a rest area and from where we were parked, I could see the home right across the field. There in the kitchen was the mother, working away preparing what looked to be cut out cookies. She would work and then slump over the counter as if she simply did not have adequate energy to even hold her head upright. I wondered, come dawn, if the person/s for whom she was making the cookies would value the cost of making them. I wondered if she would.
All the way from Pennsylvania to Indiana, there wasn’t a single “area” that didn’t have people up and working frantically to complete Christmas activities. I saw people wrapping presents, baking, decorating – I even saw some people arguing. Mostly, however, it wasn’t “people” I saw – it was women. Visibly exhausted women.
I understand the drive to want to make the holidays “perfect” for our families. I understand the desire to have the “right” food on the table. I understand the desire to make it “special” for our children. I understand too, that this level of perfection is a lie, with the intended result of that lie to leave us so weary, so distracted and frazzled, that we can not attend to the truly important things.
I know that this standard we are breaking our backs to attain to is a lie because, if it were not, then there would be none of us who are facing the idea of Christmas with no money to provide all these things. If it were TRULY an issue of importance and need, then our Lord would meet that need for us, as He has promised He will do with every need we have.
If it were TRULY a need, then I suspect that someone would have shown up in the stable with a plate of Christmas cookies, wearing a jumper that matched the hot pads that were around the carafe of freshly made hot chocolate. (And I’m certain that there would have been at least 12 kinds of cookies on the plate – as well as a few types of candy.) 
Humble, quiet, gentle beginnings – these are the trademarks of the day we are celebrating. How is then that we let ourselves become consumed with the…the stuff of the season? I have spoken to – who am I kidding?? – I have been a woman c.o.n.s.u.m.e.d. over getting the right gift, making the right cookies, having the right decorations, doing what ever silly thing I thought was right. Consumed to the point of breaking relationship. Consumed to the point that my eyes were on the holiday and not on the Holy One for whom it is intended to honor.
We, as Godly women… nay, I…must remember that this season that we are celebrating has nothing to do with gifts, nothing to do with cookies, nothing to do with colored lights, paper or beautiful ornaments. It has everything to do with our Lord coming as a baby, as a sacrifice to see us changed into a reflection of Him, to make a way for us to have relationship with the Most High God. And nothing I do can add to the glory, the beauty or the majesty of THAT.
