Christmas Magic
Our family was not a C and E family. No, we were the real deal. We came to church every Sunday, not just on Christmas and Easter. My mother had been a religious education major when she met my dad in college, and his family was descended from a line of Lutheran ministers that could be traced all the way back to Germany and the reformation. So, no, we were most decidedly not C and E people. We knew our bible verses and even though I was small, I could recite the Christmas story almost by heart, skipping through the Gospels to tell the story of the angel saying to Mary “Be not afraid,’ and Mary and Joseph going to the City of David for the census, and no room at the inn. I knew about the shepherds watching their flocks by night, and three wise men and a star and a babe in the manger, the Son of God, come to save us from our sins. Noooo... Not C and E people at all. We were no strangers to the magic of Christmas.
My parents would take us to the candlelight service at church on Christmas Eve. There, in the darkness of the sanctuary, as the choir sang “Silent Night”, we lit paraffin candles the size of my fat kindergarten crayons with paper collars on them to catch the drips, and passed our flame to the person next to us, down the rows of families until, by the last note, everyone was holding a flickering candle, and the darkness had been replaced by the magical light of Christmas. I always hated to let it end, to blow out my candle when the service was over, but my mom would look at me sternly until I finally puffed on it and watched the plume of smoke rise to join the haze in the ceiling.
When my parents were first married, someone gave them a single string of lights and they went up to the mountains and collected a bag of pinecones which my mom decorated with glitter and Dutch blue spray paint, because that was the only paint she had, and there was no money to buy anything else on their student budget. Loops of thread held them on the branches of the little tree my dad got just as the tree lot was closing on Christmas Eve in 1956. I was not quite a month old. By 1962, we had graduated to some tinsel and a few other homemade ornaments, but the blue pinecones were still a mainstay on our tree. We also had my brother and sister and a set of those lights with orange bulbs that look like three candles in our front window.
After church on Christmas Eve, we would drive around looking at the lights on people’s houses. It was exciting at first, craning our necks to see the beautiful lights and ornate displays. My parents would comment on how long it must have taken to put up all those lights, or what their electric bill must be. It was tremendous fun at first, but as the evening wore on, the excitement waned and we grew bored and sleepy. It was years before I understood that this was my parents’ way of dodging the excitement and sleeplessness of three over-stimulated children at Santa’s impending arrival. They could simply drive us around until the sugar rush of after-church cookies wore off and we fell asleep and then carry us to bed and tuck us in.
I was six, my brother four, and my sister just two, in 1962 on Christmas Eve. That was the year we discovered the real magic in Christmas. Even after half a century, the memory is so vivid I could drive you to the exact street, maybe even the exact house where we saw it. It was so cold that Christmas Eve that I can still remember the sound of the snow squeaking under the tires of our 1953 Chevy, yellow with the black top. It was still early – maybe 8:30. Church had just gotten out, and we had barely started to look at all the lights in the neighborhood. Suddenly, our daddy yelped in surprise and said “Look, kids! It’s Santa!” And sure enough, there he was, walking across the snowy street with his big bag of toys! Daddy stopped the car and rolled down his window. “Hi Santa!” he said. “Hi Santa! Hi Santa!” we chorused from the back seat, scrambling to roll our window down. “Ho, Ho, Ho! Merry Christmas! Have you been good little children?” Santa asked. We nodded breathlessly, suddenly speechless. “Hey Santa,” Daddy said, “When are you coming to our house?” And Santa shook his head slowly. “Well, now I don’t know.” He said. “I don’t go to any houses where the children aren’t in bed and asleep, so it might be a while before I get to your house.”
I don’t remember any more, I don’t even remember leaving Santa to his work, but my mother would tell it years later that nothing would do but that we had to go home right now! And that once the house was unlocked, there was a trail of tiny mittens and coats and clothes from the door to our bedrooms, where we were frantically getting into our jammies, jumping into bed and pulling the covers to our chins with our eyes squeezed tight.
These days, I’m kind of a C and E person. It’s harder now, with politics and religion all mixed up and strange. It’s harder to know what to believe in now that some Christians are okay with things I believe are wrong. I still love Christmas, and I still hang my mother’s blue pinecones on the tree, but it feels more complicated now. I long to rekindle my old belief in herald angels and shepherds following a star to find the babe in the manger. The music of the season still calls me to sing along to the radio, but I miss the reverent and joyful hymns of my childhood. I miss the uncomplicated belief in a god that so loved the world – loved me - that he gave his only begotten son… Children remind me to revel in the joy of the holidays, and I love seeing the season through their eyes. I bake cookies and invite lots of people to share Christmas dinner. I love the gifts and sparkles, and a few years ago I got one of those three candle lights to put in my window. I’m not a fan of the Santa at the mall, though, because when I was just a girl, I saw the real deal one snowy Christmas Eve. I might be a C and E person now, but I still want to believe in magic and I’m pretty sure I’ll know it when I see it because I saw it once before.