What Christmas Means to Me

Sandy Carl­son at Writ­ing in Faith tagged me to par­tic­i­pate in this meme. The instruc­tions are:

1. Write a para­graph next to the last para­graph in the tag that is passed to you, and add a link back to your site.
2. Use a title that suits your Christ­mas thoughts and ideas.
3. Tag as many other blog­gers as you wish.

Sandy wrote these beau­ti­ful words:

Christ­mas is about choos­ing to love. We reflect on the birth of Christ from the point of view of faith­ful peo­ple who know Jesus’ life story. We know what he will make of his life. We see it as prophecy ful­filled, and so it was because of the choices Jesus Christ made. Born into a trou­bled world in which the Jew­ish peo­ple suf­fered at the hands of Rome’s dom­i­na­tion sys­tem, Jesus taught that the king­dom of God is inside each per­son. He taught this as a les­son for all peo­ple every­where: That lov­ing kind­ness and com­pas­sion are the gifts of a warm heart; each of us must choose to nur­ture these gifts and to give them away. Then we trans­form the world. Jesus chose to do what he was called to do, and it did it to his last breath and beyond.

The other day I tried to pho­to­graph the fig­ures of my inex­pen­sive bisque nativ­ity. The pic­tures that resulted were mediocre pho­tos, but the exer­cise because an act of devo­tion and dis­cov­ery for me. Look­ing through my cam­era and study­ing each fig­ure care­fully, I saw the obvi­ous: That only the arms of the new baby are open. All oth­ers’ are closed in humil­ity and wor­ship. Here is the Christ child reach­ing for the whole world; here is the whole world focused on his gift, need­ing it so desperately.

Christ­mas is about choos­ing love with open arms.

Sandy summed up the spir­i­tual essence of Christ­mas so beau­ti­fully that I am sim­ply going to add, “Amen and amen!”

For me, the mean­ing of the sea­son, like my faith, has evolved over the years, but the two con­stants that make the hol­i­days spe­cial for me are the sounds and, of course, fam­ily.

It sim­ply isn’t Christ­mas with­out the music so I offer you one of my favorite hol­i­day tunes in trib­ute to and mem­ory of Dan Fogel­berg who suc­cumbed to can­cer at only 56 years old last Sun­day, Decem­ber 16, 2007. If lives have sound­tracks, Dan Fogelberg’s ear­li­est (and best) works are cer­tainly part of the musi­cal back­drop of my time on this planet. If you have never heard Nether­lands, you have missed one of the best albums ever recorded. Although he is gone, he leaves a rich musi­cal legacy and, for many of us, our mem­o­ries of events, peo­ple and feel­ings are intri­cately inter­twined with his pow­er­ful tunes, evoca­tive words, and strong, clear voice.

As I men­tioned in Aloha Fri­day Hol­i­day Edi­tion, my Christ­mas mem­o­ries all revolve around mak­ing music: From Sun­day School Christ­mas Eve pro­grams (after which we always got a book of Life Savers from the Sun­day School Super­in­ten­dent) to count­less Christ­mas Eve can­dle­light wor­ship ser­vices. When I think of Christ­mas, I remem­ber all the times I played “Silent Night” on the organ, piano or flute while the lights were dimmed, the can­dles flick­ered on the altar, and the con­gre­ga­tion sang qui­etly but with more emo­tion than any other time of the year.

When I served as the church organ­ist, my mother and #1 Son always attended the 11:00 p.m. ser­vice, after which we would bring Nana home and spend some time hav­ing a late night snack while watch­ing the wor­ship ser­vice broad­cast from the Vat­i­can at which the Holy Father pre­sides. We loved lis­ten­ing to the choirs and hear­ing yet another Christ­mas mes­sage. Then #1 Son and I would head home. As he got older, he helped me arrange the presents from Santa, usu­ally offer­ing to eat the cook­ies we put out for Santa, but leav­ing plenty of crumbs and one half-eaten treat on the plate so that his brother would be con­vinced that Saint Nick had really vis­ited and enjoyed the snack.

My father was the first to leave us and his death inspired us to imple­ment new tra­di­tions. Even­tu­ally, my mother-in-law and mother also died. To assuage our grief over lost loved ones, we have never again cel­e­brated in exactly the same ways as when we were all together. Now I, Big­Bob, and my sis­ter and brother-in-law have come to terms with the real­iza­tion that we are “the old folks.”

The Christ­mas pho­tos tell the story and remind me that time def­i­nitely goes too fast. Before we knew it, the fun of buy­ing and hid­ing toys, vis­it­ing Santa (thank­fully, none of our pic­tures look like these), and try­ing to get four very busy boys to coop­er­ate for a hol­i­day photo shoot evolved into con­sid­er­ing when finals end, what to buy the girl­friends, and dis­cus­sions like this:

“Are you sure there isn’t some­thing you want besides money?“
“Well, yeah, I want a _______ which is what I’m sav­ing up the money to buy, but if you want to just get it for me, that would be o.k., too.”

The blank has stood, over the years, for many items rang­ing from a car, a sound sys­tem and fancy wheels for the car, a com­puter, a trumpet, …

My sis­ter and I groan when we recall 1993. She still reminds me that it was my idea to give my mother a nice stu­dio por­trait of all four boys, then 10, 6.5, 4 and 2 years of age. We sur­vived the sit­ting (although I’m not sure the pho­tog­ra­pher did … she was dis­cussing a career change by the time we fin­ished) and pur­chased a photo pack­age. We mailed a cou­ple of pic­tures to our mother’s sis­ter in South Dakota in plenty of time for a pre-holiday deliv­ery, but unfor­tu­nately for­got to tell her that the pho­tos were going to be our mother’s Christ­mas gift.

Big­Bob and I “tied the knot” on Decem­ber 7, specif­i­cally because I loved the Christ­mas sea­son and had resolved long before I met him that if I mar­ried and if I mar­ried in a church, I wanted to do it at Christ­mas time so that the sanc­tu­ary would be dec­o­rated. Note “Noel” on the wall behind us in this clip:

What I didn’t fore­see was how busy life would become either because of my own edu­ca­tional, pro­fes­sional and musi­cal pur­suits or the kids’ activ­i­ties. So we usu­ally don’t get around to cel­e­brat­ing our anniver­sary until after Christ­mas, but that’s all right because by then we’re on vaca­tion and able to relax and enjoy ourselves.

Of course, Christ­mas time also means my birth­day! Being born on Decem­ber 21 has both advan­tages and dis­ad­van­tages. Grow­ing up, I was always dis­ap­pointed because I never got to have a class­room party — we were always on Christ­mas vaca­tion. And par­ties with my friends were always “iffy” propo­si­tions because of all the other activ­i­ties. I learned to be flex­i­ble and gra­ciously accept invi­ta­tions to cel­e­brate between Christ­mas and New Year’s. My par­ents, how­ever, made sure that my birth­day and Christ­mas were two dis­tinct occa­sions, com­mem­o­rat­ing my birth­day on the 21st no mat­ter what else was hap­pen­ing. My mother did, how­ever, always put my birth­day presents under the Christ­mas tree but they stood out from the other pack­ages because they were dis­guised in pink paper, rather than tra­di­tional Christ­mas wrapping.

Still, over the years, friends have been guilty of send­ing an occa­sional Christ­mas card bear­ing this mes­sage: “P.S. Hope you had a happy birth­day.” Although I give them credit for remem­ber­ing, no one endears him/herself to me with that approach! It always stings a bit, but I do under­stand what a busy time of year this is, so I never dwell on it and always for­give, even if I don’t forget.

Jan Karon is one of my favorite authors. I have read all but the newest of her Mit­ford series of books revolv­ing around the adven­tures of Father Tim Cavanaugh, a fic­tional Epis­co­palian priest in a small town. In Shep­herds Abid­ing, Father Tim heads down to the church to open it and pre­pare for Christ­mas ser­vices. Like Father Tim, I have spent count­less hours in a cold, empty sanc­tu­ary prepar­ing for the faith­ful to arrive and wor­ship. Those times can be stress­ful and nerve-wracking, but also extremely peace­ful and centering.

For all of us this Christ­mas, I wish the same things that Father Tim prayed for dur­ing those moments when he was alone in his church in the pres­ence of his Lord:

He knelt and closed his eyes, inex­press­ibly thank­ful for qui­etude, and found his heart moved toward … all fam­i­lies who would be drawn together dur­ing this time.

“Almighty God, our heav­enly Father… ” He prayed aloud the words he had learned as a young curate, and never for­got­ten. “… who settest the soli­tary in fam­i­lies: We com­mend to thy con­tin­ual care the homes in which thy peo­ple dwell. Put far from them, we beseech thee, every root of bit­ter­ness, the desire of vain­glory, and the pride of life. Fill them with faith, virtue, knowl­edge, tem­per­ance, patience, god­li­ness. Knit together in con­stant affec­tion those who, in holy wed­lock, have been made one flesh. Turn the hearst of the par­ents to the chil­dren, and the hearts of the chil­dren to the par­ents; and so enkin­dle fer­vent char­ity among us all, that we may ever­more be kindly affec­tioned one to another; through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

In the deep and expec­tant silence, he heard only the sound of his own breathing.

“Amen,” he whispered.

I am tag­ging these folks to par­tic­i­pate: Each of you! Be sure to let me know so that I can link your site in the list of par­tic­i­pants below!

Merry Christ­mas to you and all of your loved ones!

Other Par­tic­i­pants:

• Teacher Julie
• Tales from the Cenobite

Tech­no­rati Tags: Christ­mas, Sun­day Scrib­blings, What Christ­mas Means to Me Meme

On the Same Topic:

• I get that sink­ing feeling …
• A Lit­tle Spice
• I Heard the “D” Word on Christ­mas Day (Part One)
• A Walk Along a New Path
• The Rem­nants of My Mis­spent Youth