![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Christmas Magic
Dec. 24th, 2014 07:27 pmChristmas is one of the few things of my childhood that was pleasant. My mom made a real effort to make it a special time regardless of her circumstances and my memories of the Christmases of my youth are all happy ones. I think we always had a real tree and there were always a large number of presents around it. In those days I was a christian and I believed whole-heartedly in the basic religious underpinings of the holiday, even though I learned quickly enough that Jesus wasn't actually born in December (if he was born at all).
My favorite memory of those years was of returning home after the Candlight service at church on Christmas Eve. We almost always went and opened presents after...Santa's delivery was scheduled each year during the service. I was driving home that night and as we paused at the stop sign to turn onto the main road heading home, I was caught by the most perfect, peaceful, beautiful Christmas snowfall I'd ever seen. To me, that was the perfect Christmas moment. Snow drifting down onto the windshield, lit by the warm glow of the streetlight overhead. I've never seen anything like it since.
So here I am, more than 20 years later sitting in a dark room that is only lit by the lights on the Christmas tree. This year the Christmas tree is surrounded by at least as many presents as the most bountiful year of my childhood with three kids receiving gifts. They're just for Jade and me, because we like buying each other presents and watching the unwrapping. The street outside seems surprisingly busy. And though I live in New England, which is always supposed to be snowy in my own worldview, it's wet from rain and warm with temperatures in the 40's even after sundown.
It's been a little harder for me to hold on to the magic of Christmas this year with the warm weather and the rain, the absence of Jade as she is helping friends on the other side of the country, and the sense of general grumpiness on most of the people I encounter in the world outside my living room. Most of my wishes for a happy holidays is received with a grudging return, and it largely seems as though this December is little different than any other time of year. Long ago and far away is the sense that this is "the most wonderful time of the year," as we embark in a "winter wonderland."
Still, I cling to the sense of the holiday. Even if the world outside seems mad with violence and despair, at this moment in my house with well-fed animals all around me, the lights of the Christmas tree filling the room with a warm glow, the promise of Jade's return drawing ever near, I focus on what Christmas has always really meant to me. A hope for peace and love to triumph over all, an embrace of the joy in giving, the warm companionship of family and friends. Life is what one makes of it, or so I fervently believe, and Christmas is a time when we can choose to make it about the better nature of humanity. Joy, hope, love and giving, no matter how cold and dark it is outside.
It's in that spirit that I wish you all a Merry Christmas.
My favorite memory of those years was of returning home after the Candlight service at church on Christmas Eve. We almost always went and opened presents after...Santa's delivery was scheduled each year during the service. I was driving home that night and as we paused at the stop sign to turn onto the main road heading home, I was caught by the most perfect, peaceful, beautiful Christmas snowfall I'd ever seen. To me, that was the perfect Christmas moment. Snow drifting down onto the windshield, lit by the warm glow of the streetlight overhead. I've never seen anything like it since.
So here I am, more than 20 years later sitting in a dark room that is only lit by the lights on the Christmas tree. This year the Christmas tree is surrounded by at least as many presents as the most bountiful year of my childhood with three kids receiving gifts. They're just for Jade and me, because we like buying each other presents and watching the unwrapping. The street outside seems surprisingly busy. And though I live in New England, which is always supposed to be snowy in my own worldview, it's wet from rain and warm with temperatures in the 40's even after sundown.
It's been a little harder for me to hold on to the magic of Christmas this year with the warm weather and the rain, the absence of Jade as she is helping friends on the other side of the country, and the sense of general grumpiness on most of the people I encounter in the world outside my living room. Most of my wishes for a happy holidays is received with a grudging return, and it largely seems as though this December is little different than any other time of year. Long ago and far away is the sense that this is "the most wonderful time of the year," as we embark in a "winter wonderland."
Still, I cling to the sense of the holiday. Even if the world outside seems mad with violence and despair, at this moment in my house with well-fed animals all around me, the lights of the Christmas tree filling the room with a warm glow, the promise of Jade's return drawing ever near, I focus on what Christmas has always really meant to me. A hope for peace and love to triumph over all, an embrace of the joy in giving, the warm companionship of family and friends. Life is what one makes of it, or so I fervently believe, and Christmas is a time when we can choose to make it about the better nature of humanity. Joy, hope, love and giving, no matter how cold and dark it is outside.
It's in that spirit that I wish you all a Merry Christmas.
