Did you think I had not written the Christmas Missive because the season is too painful?
Did you think I had run out of things to say - especially at Christmas?
Did you think I was not celebrating this year?
Actually, quite the opposite is true. I am celebrating. I am baking and shopping and worshiping and singing and playing Christmas carols on the piano. I am opening doors to guests for Christmas. I am planning meals and activities and fluffing the bedrooms and stocking the pantry. I am listing three blessings a day because I promised I would, but in actuality I have many more. I am writing words of encouragement and filling mailboxes with small surprises. I am lighting candles and I am loving my husband and my 16-year old dog and listening to the chirp of my red cardinals.
Oh, I am celebrating.
I am celebrating the wonder of Christmas -
That I can still recall (at 63) the wonder and excitement of childhood memories.
Blue lights on a snowy hill on our farm.
Mother's cookie press cookies that I still cannot master.
Christmas caroling in the snow.
Getting the part of Mary in the second grade.
Rearranging over and over the Nativity - somehow Jesus always stayed in the middle of it all.
Piling in the 1959 Desoto to go Christmas shopping in Cincinnati after the tobacco crop was sold.
Stockings filled to the brim with small treasures.
And I continue to celebrate the wonder -
Believing and trusting more with each year that Jesus is my best gift.
Keeping traditions with friends - the breakfast, the candy cane cookies, the caroling, the pinwheels.
Making time each day to think of someone else, to surprise and enjoy my children.
Rising early to sit before the Advent candles - just to wonder and celebrate before the day begins.
And I don't want the wonder to end.
And so the question becomes: "How do I keep this wonder, this celebration through the year?"
Or maybe for some, "How do I find that kind of wonder?"
It really comes down to the one gift we have all be given.
Which one gift?
Oh, the gift of Jesus, the figure in the manger who remains in the center of all things - and always will. Because when we fully trust that He is the reason for this season, that He came to free us from all the baggage we each have, that He promises to be with us, guide us, comfort us, assure us of our future, that He promises to make all things new - He is the one gift that never breaks, gets returned or used up.
And yet, He is the one gift that so many refuse to open and enjoy.
We must open the gift of Jesus by allowing Him to enter our heart and live there.
And then we can celebrate.
And when life takes a turn and doesn't go the way we think it should, He is there.
For it is often in the darkest moments, the gift really shines forth, like that night long ago.
And so, can you celebrate this year the wonder of it all?
Yes, you can. Just be sure to open the gift of Jesus.
"Not celebrate?
Your burden is too great to bear?
Your loneliness is intensified during this Christmas season?
Not celebrate?
You should lead the celebration!
You should run through the streets
to ring the bells and sing the loudest!
You should fling the tinsel on the tree,
and open your house to your neighbors,
and call them in to dance!
For it is you above all others
who know the joy of Advent.
It is unto you that a Savior is born this day,
One who comes to lift your burden from your shoulders,
One who comes to wipe the tears from your eyes.
You are not alone,
for He is born this day to you."
(from Kneeling in Bethlehem by Ann Weems)
