Preparing for Christmas (again)

I guess every family has a Christmas Story. This one has been around our family for over twenty years. I’m sure my family is tired of it, but it still occupies a spot among our decorations each year. These thoughts from 1997 still ring true for me today as I prepare for our 2019 Christmas celebration.

This is a reposting from 2017.

WE DO IT BECAUSE HE CAME.

Thanksgiving Day has passed and most of us move into the time of preparing for Christmas.   Hopefully, that is fun.  Sometimes, it’s not so easy.  Sometimes, it’s not so meaningful.  But it should be.

Twenty years ago, I experienced the first Christmas season where I truly paused long enough , in the midst of all the trappings of the season and all the circumstances we were dealing with,  to question whether I was doing what I should do to insure that my family focused on the things that last forever.  I tried to express it this way:

BECAUSE HE CAME

It is the week before Christmas,
The last Christmas before Jamie will go to college.
The Christmas in the year that everything happened.

We’re near the end of the house construction
Which has dragged on for nine months too long,
And is costing so much more than we planned
That what was to be a comfortable financial commitment
Has become a most worrisome burden.
Every day it looks more like Jamie may be off to Auburn in the fall,
A full state and a half away.
And there is usually an extra truck out back
Whose driver is camped next to her on the sofa.

My head is still swimming from eight months of preparation
And The Wedding Day,
When I walked Cayce down the aisle,
And left the church three hours later without her.
We celebrated our twenty-fifth year of marriage, but
The trip we hoped to take
Will have to wait for a less eventful year.

After two long years of many extra hours
And huge investments of mental energy,
The business I’m supposed to turn around, hasn’t.
And the one I’m supposed to grow dramatically, didn’t.
The enjoyment of double mortgage payments continues
As our old house marks its ninth month
With a For Sale sign adorning the lawn.
And the dog developed congestive heart disease.

In the midst of all these goings on
I bounded up the stairs last night
To find my two girls painting decorations for our tree.
Cayce’s new husband was at work earning extra for the holidays.
She came to visit because it’s fun at our house,
And Jamie’s busy social calendar had a blank space.
Watching them work together, and later playing games by the tree,
I savored their enjoyment of each other’s company,
The way sisters can do after one of them leaves home.
There in the glow of those Christmas tree lights,
With all the joy settling over that same rec room
Where Santa had left their gifts for fourteen years
Questions disturbed the glow within my heart.

Have I shown them clearly enough across the years
That all the lights and ornaments and trees and food and gifts
Have no meaning…except that Christ came?
Do they know how strongly I believe?
And how much I will celebrate in my heart that
The God of the universe chose to send His Son
That I might share in His very being, as His child?
Have I told them that I despise the way
They cheapen the celebration on T.V.?
As if it’s okay to have a drunken Christmas Eve.
As if it’s okay when the politically correct
Try to mute the Christ gift
To make the day inoffensive to anyone’s beliefs.
As if blessing the food for that day’s meal
Or buying a gift for a child off an angel tree
Can fill the emptiness that comes
With living the year without Him.
Have I shown them that even when there are money issues,
And the job is not going quite right,
And your heart aches because your babies are leaving home,
And your moving plans are fouled up,
There can be true joy in your soul
Because Christ came?

Next week we will open many gifts,
And stuff ourselves with our traditional food;
The turkey at Mema’s, whole cinnamon apples for breakfast…
We will drive home late from June Drive,
We will gather ‘round our not quite straight Christmas tree
And take a photo of all the family.

And I will make sure they know that all we’ve done,
We’ve done
Because He came.

December, 1997

Why will you do what you do this Christmas season?   Will those around you know?

(Yes, the photo is from much later!)

My favorite Christmas song for 2019. You might enjoy.

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