The trouble of Christmas

Ah, it’s that time again. When a lifetime of expectations flood our being with a few bars of a remembered song. Every year, as dusk cuts the day in half, as sparkling colored lights and candles glimmer against the black, I find my self yearning for the elusive magic that winter used to hold for me, the excitement of being an innocent child, about to be landed upon by a benevolent man whose bags were full of gifts.

 

We don’t tell anyone, sometimes not even ourselves, why we go through all the trouble of Christmas.

But I can remember even now, the thrill of imagining the black night sky over Jerusalem’s desert sands as a star in the east announced the birth of a very special baby. I knew the inside story because I was a fully initiated  member of a special club whose president was nothing less than the creator of this amazing universe. In our family, there were so many of us, we even had a role for the donkey. I made costumes for my brothers and sisters and staged the nativity play and sang the songs we all knew by heart. That’s a towel on Bernadette’s head but we all know she’s one of the shepherds.

As adults, we re-create the world of Christmas for the little ones in our lives. Ever since I was old enough to be a big sister, there was no one so cherished as the baby. Their smell, their cluelessness, their vulnerability and their unmitigated joy. We want to be close to that innocence. We love being next to them as they get that look on their small faces, even as they are too young to articulate what they’re feeling: their world is Christmas morning, and every adventure ahead is part of the discovery of a magnificent life.

Who doesn’t want to climb back into that safe and happy place – even for a moment – when everyone you loved was alive, and maybe even in the same room?

This year my first novel, A THEORY OF EXPANDED LOVE was born and pushed out of the nest by my cherished publishing family LIGHT MESSAGES, in whose company I am proud to be. They also produced The Particular Appeal of Gillian Pugsley by Susan Ornbratt, Tea & Crumples by Summer Kinard and Worlds Between by Carl Nordgren, three beautiful books.