When There Is No Room (and Why That Might Be Enough)

Two days before Christmas, our house still isn’t decorated.

No tree in the corner.
No twinkle lights tucked into unexpected places.
No last-minute rush to make things feel festive.

A few weeks ago, that realization carried a lot of grief for me. In my last post, I wrote honestly about the guilt I felt—not just about decorations, but about all the family traditions I haven’t been able to carry forward this season. For a while, that grief sat heavy. Heavier than I expected. Heavier than I wanted to admit.

I didn’t just miss the traditions. I felt like I was failing them.

And then, after a week of carrying that guilt quietly, I finally said it out loud. I shared it with my family—the sadness, the sense of loss, the pressure I was putting on myself to recreate something that simply wasn’t possible this year.

What surprised me most was not their response, but the relief that followed. Together, we named what we already knew: this season will not look the way it used to. And somehow, once it was named, it became okay.

We let go.

Instead of striving to make everything look a certain way, we chose something else. A couple of quiet days together. No distractions. No expectations. Just presence.

And instead of decorating our home at the last minute, we decided we’ll open our Christmas presents together around one of our Christmas photo settings. It makes me smile when I say that out loud. It’s a little funny. A little unconventional. And honestly—it feels just right.

Not fancy. But okay.

This has had me thinking a lot about the Christmas story itself. About Mary and Joseph arriving in Bethlehem and finding no room. Not because the town was cruel, but because it was full. Busy. Preoccupied. Everyone already had plans, obligations, priorities.

And still—this is where God chose to enter the world.

Not in a prepared space.
Not in a beautifully arranged room.
But in borrowed shelter. In simplicity. In the quiet acceptance of what was available.

I think we sometimes rush past that part of the story. We soften it. We decorate it. We turn the manger into something quaint and sentimental. But the truth is, the absence of room exposes something important—not just about the world then, but about us now.

We are often full. Full calendars. Full expectations. Full ideas of how things should look.

And when we are full, there is very little room left for grace.

This year, my Christmas looks more like a manger than a magazine spread. Less curated. Less busy. Less impressive. And I’m slowly realizing that this might be the point.

At The Gathering Table, we talk a lot about hospitality—about inclusion, generosity, and making room for others. What we don’t always say out loud is that hospitality costs something. Time. Energy. Emotional bandwidth. Sometimes even our own traditions.

This season, the energy went somewhere else. It went into creating space for others. Into building relationships. Into welcoming people as they are. And that meant something else didn’t happen at home.

For a while, I thought that meant I had failed.

Now, I’m beginning to see it differently.

Hospitality was never meant to be about abundance or perfection. It has always been about presence. About showing up with what we have, not what we wish we could offer.

The Christmas story reminds us that God does not wait for ideal conditions. God enters reality as it is. God is comfortable with borrowed spaces. With unfinished places. With simplicity.

This year, my family is choosing presence over presentation. We are choosing quiet over performance. We are choosing to be together, even if the setting is a little unconventional.

And in that choice, I feel something loosening. A gentleness replacing the guilt. A sense that maybe this is not a diminished Christmas, but a truer one.

Not fancy—but enough.

If your Christmas looks different this year, if it feels quieter or simpler or less polished than you hoped, I want you to know this: God is not waiting for more from you. God is already present in the room you have.

May you find peace in letting go.
May you trust that presence matters more than perfection.
And may you discover, like we are, that even when there is “no room,” love still finds a way to dwell.