Christmas

Holiday Transitions

November 24, 2015 by Nancy 15 Comments

As the leftover items from our yard sale were loaded into a big truck to be donated to a worthwhile charity this past summer, it wasn’t seeing doll furniture or well-loved dishes disappearing through the big open doors on the side of the truck that made me cry. It was the big straw turkey that had been a part of our Thanksgiving decorations for many years. He seemed to be looking at me saying, “What did I do? Didn’t I faithfully sit on your front porch through all kinds of weather? And I have to tell you, that pumpkin rotting next to me didn’t smell so good either!”

But he had to go because we were “downsizing.” Not only did I think there wouldn’t be a spot for him on our new front porch, I didn’t think we would want to store him the other 11 months of the year. Bye-bye turkey.

That’s just one of the holiday tradition transitions that we’ll be experiencing this year. With every move the question is always asked: Where will we put the Christmas tree in this new house? After a move like ours, the question will more likely be: Do we still have a tree? If so, where is it? And did we keep those dangling icicle lights or did we toss them?

Changes in holiday traditions can be unsettling. There’s comfort in knowing the fall leaves, pumpkins and gourds always go on the mantel at Thanksgiving, and the nativity set is always set up on the buffet in the dining room for Christmas. But what if you move to a home without a mantel? What if you sold the buffet at auction and got a pitiful amount for it? (Sorry, touchy subject there.)

I know I’ll enjoy decorating our new, smaller home for the holidays this year, and I will appreciate our decorations even more because they survived the move. Due to sentimental attachment or simple oversight, whatever we have now wasn’t culled, so decorating will be like introducing old friends to our new home. I’ll try to focus not on what has changed, but on what will never change.

Gone is the big oak dining table with three leaves that expanded to ten feet long. Yet no matter who sits around our smaller Thanksgiving table this year, we’ll still have warm memories of all the faces who’ve been around our table in years past. We’ll still get a lump in our throats when each person shares what he or she is most grateful for this year, and we’ll still praise God and thank Him for all the blessings He bestows on us day after day—including the opportunity to downsize.

When Christmas rolls around our cat, Molly, will still take up residence under the tree. We’ll still have the crèches and tree ornaments that remind us of the reason for the season: For to us a child is born, to us a son is given…And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6). My husband will still say that “Mary, Did You Know?” is his favorite Christmas song, and singing “Silent Night” by candlelight on Christmas Eve will still bring tears to my eyes. Yes, there will be changes and transitions this holiday season, but the people we love will seem even dearer, and the God we serve will still be sovereign over all. The best things in life transition well.

Christmas Tears

December 19, 2014 by Nancy 20 Comments

What is it about this season that has us gazing at blurry Christmas lights as we fight back tears? Or digging through our purse for a tissue as we let them flow?

There are many reasons for the feelings that fall from our eyes this time of year. Many of them joyful. My granddaughter Amanda called to tell me, with great excitement in her voice, that she’s engaged! I’m truly happy for her, and at peace that her match with her fiancé Taylor is a God-ordained one, yet I cried off and on for about 24 hours. I can’t explain it; I just needed to cry. For the precious little girl she once was. For the beautiful, Godly woman she’s become. For the future she’s been given. For love.

To stem the tide of tears, my husband took me over to the Broadmoor Hotel, a very nice resort near us, to walk around the lake and see their Christmas decorations. That helped for a while, but we also browsed a specialty kitchen shop there and I happened to pick up a jar labeled: Southern Pecan Pie in a Jar. Jim took one look at me and knew the tears were going to flow yet again. “You can’t put Southern pecan pie in a jar!” I exclaimed, as a flood of memories of my mom’s pecan pie, served around her dining room table in Tennessee, washed over me—along with the realization that while I have her recipe, I’ll never taste her pecan pie again.

In fact, memories of loved ones who have gone before us stimulate many of the Christmas tears we shed. Last Christmas season I offered to take a dear, recently widowed woman in our church to a “remembrance service” the church held. During the service I saw her dabbing her eyes with her embroidered handkerchief and silently but foolishly gave myself a mental pat on the back for making the effort to bring her to the service. Yet afterwards, when I asked her what she thought of the experience, she said, “I think it made it worse.” So much for trying to comfort her. Sometimes we just have to cry, and for a time at least, little else helps.

Yet could it also be that our senses are more alive this time of year? Everywhere we look the world is aglow. Bright lights adorn church sanctuaries and gas stations alike. People are kinder. Faces of loved ones are dearer. Life is sweeter. It’s all just enough to make a grown woman cry. And the music! We can’t forget the music. Last Sunday our worship pastor invited a cellist to play with our praise band. The melodies of familiar carols never seemed so rich and uplifting, nor the words so meaningful. There I was, digging in my purse for that last tissue I knew was there some place.

“There is a sacredness in tears,” writes Washington Irving. “They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.”

It’s the unspeakable love that has my Christmas tears flowing this year. Love for family. Love for friends. And the love that came down on Christmas. The love we read of in John 3:16: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. Unspeakable love indeed.

If you’re also feeling weepy this Christmas, let’s just watch Hallmark movies until we can’t cry another tear. Let the feelings flow into a sea of unspeakable love. Then our hearts and minds will be cleansed and ready for the New Year. Tissue, anyone?

Bethlehem Bound

December 22, 2013 by Nancy 10 Comments

I recently read that the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is being restored after 600 years, and was reminded of this column from a few years ago. Merry Christmas to you, wherever the Lord leads you!

Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened…Luke 2:15

How often we look back on the way God orchestrated something in our lives, something so totally opposite from what we had planned, and say, “But, of course, it had to be just as it was.” Such was the case when Mary and Joseph traveled over rugged trails into Judea to the little town of Bethlehem. Certainly Mary didn’t expect to be having a baby so soon, and definitely not so far from home. But the journey fulfilled prophecy, for it is recorded in Micah 5:2: “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel.”

Surely the shepherds didn’t expect to be visited by a heavenly host that starry night either–nor to travel to Bethlehem to worship a newborn King.

As Christmas comes this year, the question on our hearts needs to be “Where are you leading me, Lord? What plans do you have for me that I don’t even know about yet?” When we ask those questions sincerely, we can celebrate Christmas Bethlehem bound, ready to go where He leads and ready to humbly worship at the feet of our Lord.

My husband and I were privileged to travel to Israel in 1998 and Bethlehem was one of the stops along our way. We were somewhat surprised by what we found there—not the idyllic scene portrayed on greeting cards, but an enormous, ornate Greek Orthodox church, the Church of the Nativity, built over the spot where Jesus was said to have been born. Pilgrims to Bethlehem step down cavernous steps inside this church into a small enclosure made even closer by the many tapestries and incense-burning lamps hanging all around. In turn, each traveler gets down on hands and knees to peer into a grotto of sorts where a 14-pointed star is embedded in the floor to “mark the spot” where Jesus was born. Jewish tradition ensures this spot is accurate, but it’s now so different from what it once was—and from what we expected.

At another stop along our tour, we saw a typical manger from the time of Jesus’ birth. It was not a wooden structure filled with hay, but a chiseled stone watering trough. Thinking of these things now, I realize there’s no better time than Christmas to set aside all our preconceived ideas. Rather than celebrate just as we always have, let’s open our hearts to the plans the Lord has for us this Christmas. Like Mary and Joseph may we be, in heart and spirit, Bethlehem bound.

(Painting shown is “Adoration of the Shepherds” by Rembrandt.)

A Little Extra Jesus

December 21, 2012 by Nancy 29 Comments

Of all the decorations we put up at Christmas, what I treasure most is my collection of nativity sets. One goes on the mantel, one in the bookcase in the living room, and one on the bookshelf in the family room. Those are the main sets, but I have smaller ones that get tucked here and there, too. Each one plays a part in helping us stay focused on the reason for Christmas—the celebration of that point in time when Jesus Christ became flesh and made his dwelling among us (John 1:14).

For two years I was unable to find the Baby Jesus that went with a small terra cotta nativity set. Finally, the next year, I reluctantly placed the stable, Mary and Joseph into the give-away pile, because what good is a nativity set without its star? I hoped maybe someone else would be able to use what was left of my set to replace a broken figure or two.

But wouldn’t you know, the year after that, as I was unpacking the nativities, I noticed something in the corner of a piece of bubble wrap. There it was—the missing Baby Jesus in the manger. Now, of course, I had no Mary and Joseph to watch over him, I just had a little extra Jesus, measuring less than two inches long! What could I possibly do with a little extra Jesus?

It didn’t take me long to realize the answer to that question. Everyone can use a little extra Jesus. Certainly the grieving families in Newtown, CT, and everyone involved in that horrible tragedy could use a little extra Jesus this year. So could my friend undergoing cancer treatment, the homeless people in our community looking for a place to get in out of the cold, and those who wonder if they will be able to make their house payments in the new year.

But none of these people need the little terra cotta Jesus that now sleeps so serenely amidst my Christmas decorations. They need more of Jesus himself—more of his mercy, his love, and his peace. They need more of his compassion, his healing, and his power—more of the hope of eternal life that he gives us. We who know him, and celebrate the true meaning of Christmas, are to be the hands and feet of Jesus in this world. If someone is to experience more of him, it may well be through us.

Now I know what to do with this tiny terra cotta babe in the manger. He’s not extra at all. I will keep him to remind me that we all need a little extra Jesus—not only at Christmas, but always.