Christmas 2011

Our Christmas season which began with Thanksgiving (both literally and figuratively) is well into its second week. As I gaze out the front door through the wreath, I pause for a minute to let the feeling of Christmas just seep into my very being!

Our Christmas is both a static and a changing thing. It is static in the traditions which we have developed. It is changing in the many ways that life itself changes and evolves. This change does not negate the quality of Christmas, just the way it unwraps gradually as we age and our children leave and change. Many things about the Christmas with young children I miss; others? Not so much!

Now, I have more time to do little things for others. One of the things we started even when our children were young was to buy gifts for some people who would not receive any otherwise. This, I can now do at a more leisurely pace. I now have time to make fresh cranberry chutney from the leftover fresh cranberries. Lunches with friends can be long and leisurely.

We no longer have young children to pile into Green Gas Hog to go see the Christmas lights. But, we have my 88 year old mother who will enjoy a ride through the beautifully lit Stephen Foster Memorial Park in White Springs. We also have the time to ramble around to our hearts' content listening to Christmas music on the radio and marveling at the things others have put up for our enjoyment! I always strongly suspected that we enjoyed these Christmas light jaunts more than the boys anyway! It was a way for our house to be cleared out so that Santa could do his magic and go on to other parts of the world.

Now we have more time to catch a play or a concert or a full moon reflected on a lake where we can marvel at the timelessness of the Christmas account. It matters not a whit that the birth was probably not in December. What matters is the magical, wonderful miracle that we worship a God Who cared enough about us (worthless and disobedient as we are) to come to earth in the form of a baby to reveal himself to us!

So! Bring on the lights, decorations, music! Sorry, Elvis, there will be no Blue, blue Christmas at our house this Christmas 2011!