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"They all were looking for a king
To slay their foes and lift them high
There cams't a tiny baby thing
That made a woman cry."
--selected
One Christmas I confessed to a friend that I had the blahs. I just couldn’t get into the Christmas spirit, I told him. I wondered if my feelings might be tied to an anniversary grief for that hard Christmas I have already written about. “Maybe we all expect too much,” my friend said. “Christmas has gotten larger than life and if everything is not ‘Chestnuts roasting by an open fire and Jack Frost nipping at your nose…’ and the house filled with family and joy and laughter we begin to think maybe Santa Claus has missed our house this year.” My friend told me that a couple of years before he decided that most of the festivity we have surrounded our Christmas with had little to do with this watershed of the Christian faith. “Take one thing, he suggested, “one small thing and make it your Christmas. Build your whole Christmas around some tiny thing that takes your breath away. And if that happens, you will find your Christmas.”
Since that time I have tried to keep my eyes and heart wide open to whatever it is that God just might send my way. One year Christmas came in a darkened candlelit Christmas Eve service. The church’s Chrisman tree reached almost to the ceiling. Poinsettias surrounded that altar. The service began with a little boy walking down the center aisle with a candle and singing clear and beautiful, “Away in a manger…” As he moved toward the Advent wreath, Christmas came. One year I built my whole Christmas around a holiday letter I had received from a friend talking about the hard, hard year and how they had come through—difficult though it was.
On another occasion I always sent my old nanny-maid who kept us for years a check this time of the year. Old and crippled, living in two tiny rooms, she always called and thanked me and we caught up—and that was Christmas. Another year it was a chance encounter at a grocery store with a clerk when she told me about her family and what she would be doing on the only she got off—Christmas day. Your celebration need not be larger than life. It could be something as simple as looking through your Christmas card list and remembering a name and a face and another time and the joy they all brought you.
Who says it has to be a thousand lights and a perfect family—whatever that is. Open your eyes…look around you—who knows how God will walk down your street and knock on your door this year?
One Christmas I confessed to a friend that I had the blahs. I just couldn’t get into the Christmas spirit, I told him. I wondered if my feelings might be tied to an anniversary grief for that hard Christmas I have already written about. “Maybe we all expect too much,” my friend said. “Christmas has gotten larger than life and if everything is not ‘Chestnuts roasting by an open fire and Jack Frost nipping at your nose…’ and the house filled with family and joy and laughter we begin to think maybe Santa Claus has missed our house this year.” My friend told me that a couple of years before he decided that most of the festivity we have surrounded our Christmas with had little to do with this watershed of the Christian faith. “Take one thing, he suggested, “one small thing and make it your Christmas. Build your whole Christmas around some tiny thing that takes your breath away. And if that happens, you will find your Christmas.”
Since that time I have tried to keep my eyes and heart wide open to whatever it is that God just might send my way. One year Christmas came in a darkened candlelit Christmas Eve service. The church’s Chrisman tree reached almost to the ceiling. Poinsettias surrounded that altar. The service began with a little boy walking down the center aisle with a candle and singing clear and beautiful, “Away in a manger…” As he moved toward the Advent wreath, Christmas came. One year I built my whole Christmas around a holiday letter I had received from a friend talking about the hard, hard year and how they had come through—difficult though it was.
On another occasion I always sent my old nanny-maid who kept us for years a check this time of the year. Old and crippled, living in two tiny rooms, she always called and thanked me and we caught up—and that was Christmas. Another year it was a chance encounter at a grocery store with a clerk when she told me about her family and what she would be doing on the only she got off—Christmas day. Your celebration need not be larger than life. It could be something as simple as looking through your Christmas card list and remembering a name and a face and another time and the joy they all brought you.
Who says it has to be a thousand lights and a perfect family—whatever that is. Open your eyes…look around you—who knows how God will walk down your street and knock on your door this year?
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