Christmas Memory

This year Mom and Dad changed the location of the Christmas tree.  During the late-fall they had some construction done on the south side of the house where sliding doors were replaced by a bay-window and sliding door combo.  It looks really good.  They also got rid of the nest of wasps living in the wall of the room right below where the construction happened where I always sleep when I come home for any occasion.  The tree is nice where it is because we can now walk across the family room without tripping over the mountain of presents spilling out from the base of the tree.

I remember when the tree used to sit at the other end of the family room - almost right in the middle of it.  I have a lot of great memories from when the tree was there.  Like the year that I went to bed in my Super Mario pajamas and dreamt late into the night that my mother was yelling at me, "Adam, Adam, wake up there's a fire!"  I awoke to my mother throwing her hands up in frustration and leaving the room saying, "You'll have to drag him out of bed Earle, he's not waking up."  Then I realized that what had been happening in my dream was stuff that I was actually hearing.  I got out of bed, with the rest of my siblings - it must've been 3 in the morning - and we sat outside in our propane-fuelled twelve passenger van - it would later become known as "The Beast" - and we sat there for what seemed hours, and finally all of us younger kids went over to have hot chocolate with the Sterlings.  That year we knew what the Sterlings got for Christmas before they came over to show us; and we let them know it.  All of the older kids had gone next door to the Wrights' house..

I don't know how long it was until we got home.  But the firetrucks and police had all been there with their ridiculous flashing lights, and they came out with a pile of smoldering ashes.  We learned later that there never was a fire, just billowing smoke in the basement.  One of my brothers had accidently placed his Tae Kwon Do uniform in his closet on a shelf right against a light bulb.  He had forgotten to turn off the light.  He fell asleep reading an Archie comic and my oldest sister, when she noticed all the smoke billowing out of his room, pulled him outta there and alerted the rest of the house.  When we saw the Sterling's stockings, and noticed oranges in them, we knew what we did not want to find in our stockings.  We all thought it was going to be the worst Christmas ever, but it turned out to be pretty good.  Everybody was alive and the Christmas tree and all the gifts were in place.  Our oldest sister Heather made sure to sleep in the family room so that we couldn't sneak into the room and begin opening presents like maniacs before Mom and Dad woke up.

Every Christmas Eve growing up we had a routine.  We would gather for supper - which was tortiere pie - which I hated (but now that I'm getting old, I enjoy) and then we would go to church for the Christmas Eve service.  After that we would come home and everybody would bring friends and spouses and we would have a party for the rest of the evening.  We used to have a giant Christmas colouring book that most people would attempt to colour in, and then as it got close to the time for kids to go to bed we would read the popular Clement Clarke Moore poem originally entitled "A Visit from St. Nicholas" but commonly known as "The Night Before Christmas" and then we would gather at my mother's really old nativity set and one of the kids would get to place the baby Jesus into the stable, where the angels, the shepherds, and the magi had gathered around Mary and Joseph.  Then we would go to bed.  Some years we would even get a Christmas Eve visit from a Santa Claus driving a rickety jalopy-of-a-car.

There are many, many memories of Christmas' I have, and I'm sure that you have your own Christmas memories.  As you remember your past Christmases, also look forward to this and the many future Christmases you will have.  Christmas is the time our hearts are reshaped by the hand of God to be directed toward hope.  Many of us have suffered great losses during this time of year, and often feel that there is no reason to believe that the gentle hand of God might lift us up beyond inspiration and into the majestic heights of impossible daring and dreaming.  But that is what Christmas is all about; that the invisible God might appear in flesh, in material object to you and all the world this Christmas.  As the Scripture says, "The people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned" (Matt. 4:16),  and it is Christ the Lord!

This Christmas may you remember the good and the bad of all your past Christmases, and may God show up in your memories lighting a way for your feet along the path toward the future that leads to "tidings of comfort and joy."