#7 - How Pinterest Stole Christmas (Part 1) - Putting Christ First

Barbara Rainey's Top 10 Interviews

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How Pinterest Stole Christmas (Part 1) - Putting Christ First
How Pinterest Stole Christmas (Part 2) - Making Jesus Our Focus

FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript

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Putting Christ First

Guest: Barbara Rainey

From the series: How Pinterest Stole Christmas (Day 1 of 2)

Air date: December 1, 2014

Bob: Let’s be honest. The Christmas season can be overwhelming; can’t it? Barbara Rainey remembers, as she was raising her children, all of the expectations she placed on herself—expectations about gift-giving.

Barbara: I wanted to say, “Thank you,” to the people that delivered our mail. I wanted to say, “Thank you,” to their piano teacher, and the list went on and on. I was imposing a standard on myself—and it was probably all skewed up and all wrong. I was, at some level, looking for affirmation from people; or, at some level, I was probably looking for someone to give me a pat on the back that I was the best mom in the world—I don’t know. So, I’m often my worst enemy. I think a lot of women are like that. We’re often our own worst enemy. We have expectations of ourself that God does not have of us.

Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Monday, December 1st. Our host is the President of FamilyLife®, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. We’ll talk today about making the holiday season a little more manageable.

1:00

It all starts by having your priorities straight. Stay tuned.

And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us on the Monday edition. You know, you get to the end of the Thanksgiving celebration—the weekend is over—and you feel like, [big sigh] “I can take a breath.”

Dennis: And then you turn the calendar—

Bob: That’s right!

Dennis: --and it’s upon you—the Christmas rush!

Bob: “I can’t stop for anything!”

Dennis: It would be interesting to have a stress meter, especially on young moms who are really trying to make Christmas the holiday of holidays during the year.

Bob: Maybe it’s an Ever Thine Home® product you can create—a stress meter. [Laughter]

Dennis: Barbara joins us on FamilyLife Today. Welcome back to the broadcast, Sweetheart.

Barbara: Thanks. Glad to be here.

Bob: This season of the year—Thanksgiving/Christmas—this is your favorite time of the year.

Barbara: It is.

Bob: And it’s also a time of the year that you always dread.

Barbara: It’s the craziest; yes.

2:00

Bob: For most moms, they feel a burden during this season to want to pull off a great family holiday thing. That burden can just punch them in the gut; can’t it?

Barbara: Well, it makes it impossible. It’s truly impossible to create the kind of Christmas that can be imagined. Most moms and women imagine creating something that’s truly memorable, and it’s meaningful, and it touches our lives. We get up in the morning—we’re full of energy—we play carols, and we bake cookies, and we take them to our neighbors. We do something for the postman and for all the teachers. We just have a desire to do all of that, and it’s just overwhelming. I ended up, every year, feeling like a failure in so many ways.

Bob: And now you’re blaming Pinterest® for the whole thing; right?

Barbara: Well, I didn’t—I just stop and think, “What would it have been like had I had Pinterest?”—

3:00

—because I’m thinking it was bad enough with my own expectations that I put on myself to make Christmas memorable for my kids and to do all these things that, in my mind, would communicate love to all these people in our lives. If I had had Pinterest, I don’t know what would have happened to me—I would have had a nervous breakdown—I don’t know.

Dennis: A million of your closest friends would have taken their images of what they’re doing, and you would have compared what you’re doing unfavorably.

Barbara: Oh, for sure I would have. Of course, I would have because all women do that—we always are comparing our homes, and our kids, and our clothes, and our yards, and our everything with other women. From a distance, we always fall short—so, at Christmas, it’s no different.

I would have gotten on Pinterest, ostensibly, to look for some really cool ideas because there are recipes, and decorating ideas, and crafts—you name it—it’s on Pinterest. I would have gotten on, looking for those things, thinking, “This is going to help me,” when, in fact, it probably would have squashed me and killed me.

4:00

Dennis: So, you’ve taken all of your theological background/your gift in art, and you have designed something else for moms to do?

Barbara: Well, the reason—yes, I have. [Laughter] Yes, now that you put it that way. But here’s the deal—I think what we women—because it’s not just young moms / because I feel the same thing today, although to a lesser degree, because I don’t have kids—but I think what we women want to do is: We feel a desire, and I think it’s a good desire, to make the holidays—our Christian holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter—to make them meaningful because we know that there is great, deep, eternal meaning in the incarnation of Christ and His resurrection at Easter.

So, because we know that, we think: “Okay, if I bake all these cookies…” or “If I give all these gifts…” or “If I decorate my house so that it’s really, really special with lots of lights, it will make it meaningful.”

5:00

Obviously, it is different from our everyday, normal routine. But you can’t find meaning in the superficial. I think we get confused, as women, thinking that adding all these things—these exterior things—is going to impart meaning / it’s going to make something special. Well, maybe it does make it special, at a certain level; but it doesn’t connect us to the eternal. I t...