The Joy of Christmas

Memory is an interesting time capsule, is it not?

I have memories that merely stir up dates … times … and places.  

Those are my memories in black and white. They are definitely alive in the recesses of my mind but they are stark and sterile.

I have other types of memories as well. 

I hold rich, vibrant and colorful memories in my heart that are so much more than mere facts. 

These types of vivid memories can trigger a scent … or a melody … or even cause me to travel through time.

Have you ever treasured a memory so deeply in your soul that not only does your mind recall the facts of the moment but your heart also is instantly tied to the memory with intense and poignant feelings?

Would you travel through time with me this week?  Although it is the second week of December 2019 … let me take you back to a December when life was simpler and when the joy of Christmas exploded into my small world.

Let’s travel to Christmas 1960. 

I attended kindergarten that morning in the one room schoolhouse that was just around the corner and up the street from the safe haven of my home.  

I lived in a home that had been built a century earlier – right after the Civil War.

We lived at 6555 Alleghany Road as a loving and caring family … my mom and dad, my older sister and a younger brother who loved to tease me! Our family was completed by Lassie, our collie and an all-white kitty cat named Tinkerbelle.

We were the consummate and whole American family of the 1960s.  

I had known only joy and unconditional love in the 6 years since I had been born. 

Now that you know the setting … would you travel through time with me?

It was a snowy, wintery day in Western New York and I had spent the hours after school sledding with my older sister and with the “redheads” from across the street.  

The “redheads” was the affectionate term that we used to describe a family of girls who all had been given the glorious gift of bright, red hair!

My toes were nearly frostbitten from the time happily spent in the sub-freezing elements. 

My mother, after taking off all of my snow-caked outer garments at the door, handed me a fresh nightgown that had been warmed in the dryer.  She then stood me on top of our old-fashioned register where the heat came blazing up from the basement furnace and caused my nightgown to puff out like a balloon.

We had a family record player that often filled our home with classical music, Broadway show tunes or gospel melodies. But this day, my mom had chosen “The King Family Christmas Album” so that I would have Christmas music to listen to while I was slowly being warmed from the tiny holes in our old-fashioned register.

I revolved around in a little girl circle while the heat found its way to warm my numb toes, raw fingers and red nose.  

While facing one direction in my rotation, I saw the piano sitting in the corner of the oversized room.

In the second direction, my view was the dining room table bedecked for Christmas in true 1960s fashion.

In the third direction I could see into my parents’ bedroom and their huge canopy bed.

Can you picture it all with me?

It’s the fourth and final view that has captured all of my senses even though it occurred nearly 6 decades ago.

The view that completed my slow rotation was looking straight out the front windows of my home and at the post office across the street. 

I remember that the snow was gently falling down around the little brown building, which was truly no more than a glorified shack of governmental importance.  

The postmaster, Mr. Hawley, had strung lights around the roof and windows of the US Post Office that was located directly across the street from my girlhood home.  

My slow and deliberate circle stopped the moment that I looked across the street at the obscure building.

As the King Family sang of city sidewalks, chestnuts roasting and finally about a Baby Boy …  I stopped my circling and just stared, transfixed at the beauty of the ordinary brown building framed by the colors of Christmas. 

I remember placing my hand on my chest because what I was experiencing in that moment was so wondrous yet simple that it made my heart hurt.  

As I wiped the tears away from my no longer frozen cheeks, my mom walked into the room. 

“Why, Carol!” she exclaimed as only a mother can, “Why are you crying?  Are you not feeling well? Did you get too cold?”

I didn’t even realize until that moment that there were tears on my cheeks.

“Mom … it’s all so beautiful.  It makes my heart hurt.”

The joy from my heart was leaking out of my eyes and running down my innocent cheeks.

A little brown shingled building … decorated with Christmas lights … made my heart hurt.

And with repeating those words to you today … I can still feel the glorious pain all over again.

Christmas is so beautiful … so filled with wonder and glory … that it makes my heart hurt to this very day.

When Christmas lights up the ordinary confines of my feeble attempt at life, the raw marvel paints a picture of stunning impact.   

When viewed without the message of the manger, my life is truly just a shack of little significance and certain obscurity. 

However, when I dress my life in the majesty of the manger and with the glory of the angel’s song it is then that I become who I was always made to be.

When the human hut of my life is changed by the purpose of the manger and by the star that led the way to His dear presence, I realize why my heart still aches for something more than this world offers.

Even now … the joy of Christmas is leaking out of my eyes and my wizened heart hurts with the joy of it all.

Has the joy of Christmas changed you?  

Have you allowed the miracle of the manger to decorate the humdrum of your life?

My prayer for you this year is that you will take a moment out of the busyness …  and away from the craziness…  and observe with no distractions what the glory of Christmas is truly all about.

I hope that you will warm yourself with the joy of His presence.

I hope that you will hear the song that angels sang so long ago and that your heart will constrict in sheer and joyous pain.

I pray that you will have a moment when the joy of Christmas leaks out of your eyes and down your cheeks.

Your life was always meant to be more than a shack … a hovel … a hut of humanity.  

Your life was meant to be the showplace of Christmas every day of every year.

Thanks for listening to my heart this week.  As you know by now, my heart is truly not a perfect heart but it is a heart that is filled to overflowing with gratitude for the life I have been given and for the people who walk with me.  And, it continues to be a heart that is relentlessly chasing after God and all that He is!