This was on a 3″ X 1″ sticker I thought I’d never use until I started down a words and stories I love road after choir last week. All is a jumble, so I may as well start at the beginning. I vaguely remember at age four ( because I mostly always did what my mother said) standing in front of a fireplace and saying “A Visit From Saint Nicholas” for a group of ladies. The first TV special the boys saw was “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” with Doug stomping the floor at the end and crying, “Bring back the Grinch” These are other words that define December.
Agreed,Luke 2 et al are foundational, yet over the years other offerings seem to help the lights shine brighter. I had a collection of books that I fanned out with cedar twigs on the coffee table. We broke up housekeeping for a move to Swift Blvd. and I left all behind without a second thought, and this day I am sorry. Among our Christmas music last week we sang one of Chesterson’s poems “The Inn at the End of the World.” The poet calls us all to that place,”We follow the feet where all souls meet at the inn at the end of the world…….- and a Child comes forth alone..’ Do that Googling of Chesterton and he has several works presenting the darkness of winter and a place to find home.
A Christmas Carol is retold in enough forms that the story can be followed as we mature and are able to grasp Dicken’s flow of English and can delight in ghosts of past and present and the cry of a small crippled boy, “God bless us, every one!” Henry VanDyke’s The Other Wise Man ties us to an interrupted journey that happens even with our best intentions. .
Children, anxious for gifts and well aware of upsets, especially if the house has a cat among the inhabitants, welcome being able to hug their knees and even laugh uproariously. “Charlie Brown’s Christmas Tree” brings some humor. Even better are Raphie’s predicaments in “A Christmas Story.” Who doesn’t cherish the family that gives life to The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.
The most memorable recountings have a miracle to reinforce the truth of the season. A change comes to a woodcarver as he, directed by a small boy, creates a special creche. The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey is noticed by the whole town. Poems give each of us a part in the larger story. Jack Keats used delightful illustrations of the boy with the noisy drum : “I have no gift to bring; I played my drum for Him, I played my best for Him.” Christiana Rossetti circles us around again to darkness in her ‘ In the Bleak Midwinter’, offering the realization that we are neither shepherd nor wise men, and yet we do not come empty handed. The words fall like a hammer: “Yet what can I give him: Give my heart.” Don’t you be sorry for words you’ve put aside. Be like Mary and fill in your own kept up with story: an angel, a journey, an inn, a child, shepherds.
But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.
Luke 2:19
Let Me Tell Ya 